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Maintenance - Chicago Illinois Family Law Blog

COVID-19 and Spousal Maintenance: When You Can No Longer Pay

By Nottage and Ward on August 31, 2020

As COVID-19 continues to rage across the United States, millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Without a form of employment, many are having difficulty paying rent, groceries, and utilities. When you have the extra costs of spousal maintenance thrown on top of that, it can seem impossible to keep your head above water. You shouldn’t give up hope, however.

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Spousal Maintenance in Illinois

By Nottage and Ward on August 30, 2019

Spousal maintenance (called alimony or spousal support in other states) is the payment of money from one spouse to another after a divorce. Its purpose is to help prevent financial and social hardship and disruption for the spouse who was financially dependent on the other spouse. There have been recent, significant changes to Illinois spousal maintenance laws.

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New Tax Law in Effect January 2019

By Nottage and Ward on January 29, 2019

Effective January 1, 2019, the taxability of maintenance payments (spousal support) from one spouse to the other has changed. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was signed into law in December 2017, reversed the 77-year-old tax law that had allowed the higher-earning spouse to deduct his/her maintenance payments and required the lower-income spouse receiving the payments to pay the tax.

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Divorce Tax Laws Are Changing

By Nottage and Ward on June 16, 2018

New changes to our federal tax laws that just passed Congress have profound implications for divorcing couples. If you are considering a divorce, you should definitely educate yourself on the new law to determine how it might influence your decision.

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The Value of Spousal Support after a Separation

By Leslie Fineberg on January 26, 2015

In Illinois, spousal support is known as “spousal maintenance.” It is the financial assistance that one spouse provides the other after a divorce. Depending on the financial situation of each spouse and the length of the separation process, maintenance may even begin during the divorce. How long it continues after the divorce and how much one spouse will have to pay the other depends on a number of factors.

Spouses are typically allowed to negotiate the value of spousal support. However, a judge will step in and make decisions for the spouses if the issue becomes contentious. Before January of 2015, judges in Illinois had room for a lot of discretion when determining how much support should be given, but that has changed.

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What are the Consequences of Failing to Pay Child Support in Illinois?

By Nottage and Ward on September 8, 2011

Thousands of parents are jailed each year in the U.S. for failing to pay child support, according to MSNBC.com. Many of these parents have willfully withheld or hid money out of spite or a feeling of injustice. Some, however, have not made the required payments due to financial instability or poverty. Across the country, all non-custodial parents who fail to make their agreed upon child support payments will be subject to the punishments set forth by the laws in their state.

Under the Illinois Non-Support Punishment Act, a person is guilty of a failure to support offense if she or he “willfully, without any lawful excuse, refuses to provide for the support or maintenance of his or her spouse, [knowing] that the spouse is in need of [it] … or, without lawful excuse, deserts or willfully refuses to provide for the support or maintenance of his or her child or children in need of [it] and the person has the ability to provide the support.”

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Massachusetts Looks to Cap Alimony Payments with Proposed Legislation

By Nottage and Ward on June 29, 2011

In Massachusetts, legislation has recently been proposed that would significantly change the way alimony payments are decided in the State, reports The Boston Business Journal. Additionally, if passed, it would also allow divorced parties to revisit their established alimony agreements, in certain circumstances.

Known as the Alimony Reform Act of 2011, the bill has been praised by many for giving long-anticipated guidelines regarding alimony awards in the State. Massachusetts does not currently permit judges to set a cap on its duration, which has resulted in many scenarios of working ex-spouses making lifetime alimony payments to a non-working ex-spouse who are supported by an unmarried, live-in partner. Now, the proposed legislation gives precise definitions of new, additional categories of alimony, and also describes how long payments should continue. For example, in “general term alimony,” a former spouse who is economically dependent on the other former spouse is given regular payments; in “rehabilitative alimony,” payment is made to a former spouse who is expected to eventually become financially independent.

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