you know alimony is probably the term
that most people are familiar with is
the term that has been used by the
majority of jurisdictions throughout the
United States Texas of course trying to
be a little unique has used the term
spousal maintenance now the advantage of
having spousal maintenance is that it is
subject to a court order much like child
support and can be raised or could be
lowered in certain circumstances or can
just be outright cut off when someone is
receiving alimony in the state of Texas
that is something that is going to be
contractual in nature so you know you
and I sign an agreement where I’m paying
you alimony of X number of dollars per
month or whatever period of time well
that’s a contract action and if I just
you know turn to you and say you know
what I’m done paying you well you don’t
have the remedy of going back to the
court and asking the court to throw me
in jail for not paying you have a breach
of contract action okay if I was paying
you spousal maintenance and I just said
yeah I don’t think you need it I’m not
paying you you could take me back to
court and you could ask the court to
throw me in jail which they very likely
would here’s one of the other advantages
in when you when you are using alimony
okay
there are tax consequences of alimony
which are not present in spousal
maintenance if you’re paying spousal
maintenance you’re not getting any kind
of credit for doing that you’re also if
you are receiving spousal maintenance
you’re not paying any taxes on that
conversely with alimony if you are
paying alimony you’re getting a tax
credit for it it’s going to rule it’s
going to reduce your adjusted gross
income if you are receiving alimony
you’re going to pay taxes on it so there
are benefits to both sides like I said
before with with alimony you don’t have
a situation where you can be taken back
to court and put in jail as a remedy for
not paying it’s only a breach of
contract action conversely with spousal
maintenance you run the risk of that
obligation being lowered if you’re the
person receiving it you know if
circumstances changed by the person
who’s paying it let’s say the person had
a real high paying job you know they
were say in television and
and making an a million two million
dollars a year well let’s say they get
fired because of some sort of a scandal
or something and they don’t have the
ability to make those payments if you’re
getting spousal maintenance you’ve got
problems there
alimony different situation breach
contract action