1948 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 209">*209
Payments to divorced wife in excess of amount required by then effective decree,
10 T.C. 706">*706 OPINION.
Respondent determined a deficiency in petitioner's income and victory tax liability for 1943 of $ 2,655.57, and by amended answer has sought an increase of $ 439.86.
The sole litigated issue results from respondent's disallowance for 1943 of a portion of a deduction for alimony payments, claimed by petitioner to be in the sum of $ 5,200 and to be required by a
All of the facts have been stipulated and for purposes of this proceeding may be summarized as follows:
In 1897 petitioner and his wife, Elizabeth, were married. In 1919 she sued him for divorce in the Court of Chancery of New Jersey, and a decree
On February 6, 1920, at petitioner's request, in which his wife joined, that part of the decree
Petitioner did not comply with the modified order, but continued to pay his wife $ 40 weekly until 1942.
In November 1941 his wife became ill, as a result of which she was hospitalized in a sanitarium in Connecticut. In response to her requests, petitioner thereafter, commencing in January 1942, paid $ 100 weekly to her sons, who in turn disbursed the sum received to the sanitarium for her care and treatment.
10 T.C. 706">*707 During each of the years 1942 and 1943 petitioner 1948 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 209">*211 paid out the sum of $ 5,200 on behalf of his wife, who reported on her tax returns as income for each of the years the sum of $ 5,200. He claimed a deduction in that amount in each of the years.
On May 31, 1946, at petitioner's request, the chancery court by its order amended the decree of February 6, 1920,
Respondent determined in the notice of deficiency "that the amount * * * paid to your divorced wife, during the taxable year 1943, in excess of the amount specified in the * * * decree is not deductible from the gross income for that year."
The increase in the deficiency represents the difference between the $ 40 a week payments allowed in the deficiency notice and the $ 30 payments fixed by the 1920 decree which respondent now contends is applicable.
The payments in controversy were made by petitioner many years subsequent to the entry in New Jersey chancery court of a divorce decree, and1948 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 209">*212 prior to the order of the same court directing retroactively that increased payments should be made. The issue, of course, is whether the excess of these payments over the amount called for by the earlier decree is deductible by petitioner under
In
The one provision of
* * * The payments includible in her gross income are "periodic payments * * *
* * * In 1942 and 1943 the petitioner was not legally obligated under any decree or written instrument incident to such decree * * *.
It is our conclusion that a decree of a state court, in so far as it attempts to determine retroactively the status of a husband or wife under
These statements seem to us equally determinative here and to demonstrate the inapplicability to this record of the deduction claimed.
The fact that petitioner's wife reported the additional payments in her tax returns for years when there was no court order requiring the payments must be viewed as purely voluntary. If in another case the wife failed under similar circumstances to charge herself with the income and a retroactive order were procured so much later that the statute of limitations had run against any tax claim against the wife, it is easy to see that the entire purpose of the interrelation between
1. Emphasis added.↩