Spokane Family Law Blog

Actor Forest Whitaker has enjoyed a long and successful career. His many pursuits in film and on television have brought joy and intrigue to the lives of Washington residents for decades. However, Whitaker has been in the news recently for something unrelated to his acting career: he recently decided to file for divorce from his wife.

Whitaker and his wife have been married for more than 20 years and share two adult children. While the end of their union is undoubtedly sad, there are a number of considerations that readers can take from it to understand the differences that couples may experience when they divorce after long-term marriages instead of after only a few years.

One difficult thing to do is to manage a parenting plan when both parents work full time. It can't be easy to share custody when you both work similar hours, and deciding who should have custody of your children when you're unable to watch over them yourself can be quite the task.

For some parents, family members can step in and watch their children after school or in the mornings. For others, changing their schedules is possible, so they do so in a way that gives them both the most amount of time with their children. However, for people with few relatives or family members to work with and similar schedules, custody becomes a real problem.

Having a child is more than an emotional commitment: it is a financial commitment as well. From making sure that a child has a safe place to call home to keeping them fed and adequately clothed for their surroundings can force a Washington parent to cut back on their savings as they invest more into the health and happiness of their child. Most parents relish in being able to take care of their families, but for custodial parents who are dependent on support payments, getting by when money is lean can be tough.

Their situations may be made even harder if their children's noncustodial parents fail to make the child support payments that they are bound to provide. Whether they are committed to payments through court orders or party-made agreements, noncustodial parents who are obligated to pay support must do so or be subject to enforcement efforts when they fall behind.

Paying alimony can be a cumbersome undertaking for someone who is trying to start their life over after ending their marriage. In Washington and other states throughout the country, payers of alimony have been allowed to deduct the money that they pay to their former spouse from their taxable income and therefore lower the amount of money that they must pay in taxes each and every year. However, in 2018 the federal government passed a huge overhaul of the tax system, and part of that overhaul addressed how alimony payments will be dealt with in the future.

Beginning in the new year, alimony payments will no longer be tax deductible. That means that a person may not reduce their taxable income by the amount of money that they provide to their former spouse through support payments. In addition to losing income to payments, a payer will also be on the hook for the taxes that apply to that money from having earned it themselves.