Redwood City, California Family Law Blog

If you and your spouse have decided to go your separate ways, you may be wondering when the timing is right to finalize a marriage dissolution. With new tax laws in place, there are many things to consider as you begin the divorce filing process. For many California couples, finalizing their divorce in 2018 may be the best financial decision for their families' futures.

First, starting on January 1, 2019, alimony laws will be changing. As of now, a paying spouse can list alimony as a deductible on their federal income taxes, while ex-spouses receiving alimony payments have to declare the money as taxable income. This "divorce subsidy" often benefited families and helped them save thousands of dollars. In the future, however, alimony is no longer deductible or taxable, which may mean that the receiving spouse will receive less money. Therefore, finalizing your divorce in 2018 may be beneficial, as alimony will still be deductible and taxable even when the new law goes into effect. That is, unless you modify your agreement to say that the new law will be applied.

The rocky nature of your marriage may have contributed to the decision to divorce. While you believe that taking this route is the best option, you may want to prepare for the possibility that the dissolution process will be just as rocky, if not more so, than the marriage itself. You may have decided from the beginning to do your best to keep your emotions in check, but your soon-to-be ex may not do the same.

Even though you cannot guarantee that your ex will act in an amicable manner during divorce proceedings, you can still work to protect yourself and hope to avoid as much conflict as possible.

Getting a divorce in California is never as simple as just filing the paperwork and going your separate ways. No matter how amicable your situation is, once your divorce proceedings begin, many restrictions and rules are put into place regarding your financial and parenting rights. These restrictions during your divorce can significantly impact your life in ways you would not expect.

For example, if you're going through a divorce and want to plan a trip with your kids to go out of state, you may want to wait until everything is finalized. Without a court order or agreement with your spouse, taking your child out-of-state in violation of an automatic temporary restraining order, even just for the day, may result in a huge mess involving the police. You may also want to wait on taking the kids to Europe to visit their grandma. Courts generally do not want divorcing parents to leave the country with the children during the proceedings, particularly if they have ties to another country. Generally, the goal is to prevent you or your spouse from keeping your child in another country or runaway with the child while custody arrangements are still being determined.

You love your children and, like most good parents in California, you want what is best for them. When you divorced, you figured that would include paying child support and you were more than willing to do so for their sakes. In fact, you were even willing to pay for non-support expenses, like helping them out with a little spending money when they took a school field trip. You were determined to do whatever you could to help them adjust to their new lifestyle in a healthy manner.

Everything was going well for a while, until your boss told you they were cutting costs and eliminating a few positions to do so, and yours was the first to go. Thankfully, it didn't take you long to find another job; however, you had to relocate and were hit with moving expenses, not to mention the new position didn't pay near as much as the first. You have really been scrounging the bottom of the money barrel to meet your child support payments.