Enrolled Agent Exam [Part 1] 20, Alimony and Separate Maintenance

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: • Alimony is non-deductible and non-taxable for divorce agreements finalized after December 31, 2018. • For pre-2019 agreements, alimony remains deductible for the payer and taxable income for the recipient. • Modifying a pre-2019 agreement does not change its tax treatment unless the modification explicitly adopts the new TCJA rules. • Child support is never deductible or taxable, regardless of the divorce date, and the exam often tries to confuse it with alimony. • A key test of whether a payment is true alimony, under old rules, is if the payment obligation terminates upon the recipient's death. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep