Payments from one former spouse to the other - discretionary in most states, and taxed differently for instruments made after 2018.
Spousal support, also called alimony or maintenance, is money one spouse pays the other after separation or divorce. It is distinct from child support, which is for a child's benefit and is calculated under a separate state formula, and distinct from property division, which allocates what already exists rather than creating an ongoing obligation.
Unlike child support, spousal support is discretionary in most states. There is no national formula and many states have none of their own, leaving the court to weigh statutory factors: the length of the marriage, the standard of living during it, each spouse's income, earning capacity, age and health, contributions to the other's career or education, and the time a spouse needs to become self-supporting. A minority of states use advisory guidelines or local formulas, which produce a starting figure a court may depart from.
Support comes in recognisable shapes. Temporary support runs while the case is pending. Rehabilitative support runs for a defined period while a spouse retrains or re-enters work. Durational support runs for a set term. Permanent or indefinite support, once common after long marriages, has been narrowed or abolished by statute in a number of states. Which of these is available is a question of state law before it is a question of the facts.
The tax treatment changed fundamentally and the change is often missed. For divorce or separation instruments executed after 31 December 2018, alimony is not deductible by the payer and not included in the recipient's income. Older instruments generally keep the previous treatment unless modified in a way that expressly adopts the new rule. Because the earlier arrangement effectively subsidised support through the tax code, figures and rules of thumb from before that date do not transfer.
This is the most negotiable major term in a divorce and one of the least predictable, which is why the range of possible outcomes is worth understanding before positions harden. Advice is worth taking where the marriage was long or the incomes are very unequal; where one spouse left the workforce, moved for the other's career, or supported the other through training; where a payer is self-employed or has variable income, since what counts as income is itself litigated; where either spouse expects to remarry or cohabit, because that commonly ends or suspends support and the terms of the order decide how; and where a support figure is being agreed rather than ordered, since an agreement that is not drafted to be modifiable may not be, whatever changes later. The tax change is worth confirming with a professional in any case where an older order is being modified, because the modification can move the instrument onto the new rules.
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