In Luce v. Folino-Inadoli, the Massachusetts Appeals Court (Rule 23.0 decision) affirmed the Probate and Family Court's reduction of the child support amount paid by the father to the mother, as well as the denial of retroactive relief for the father. In October 2018,...
Divorce litigants in Massachusetts may not clearly understand the distinction between those provisions in a Separation Agreement regarding child support and those provisions regarding the payment of the child(ren)'s expenses. Both types of provisions are merged into...
In a recent case, Macri v. Macri, the Massachusetts Appeals Court recently cemented a trial court decision to, among other things, attribute income to Husband, who was unemployed at the time of trial. Attribution of income is often a contested topic in the Probate and...
The vast majority of divorce cases are resolved not by trial, but by the parties agreeing upon and submitting a Separation Agreement to the Probate and Family Court for approval. One of the more confusing elements of a Separation Agreement for many clients is the...
The new tax reform bill (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1), which was signed into law on December 22, 2017, eliminates (http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/15/pf/taxes/alimony-tax-bill/index.html) the tax deduction for alimony payments for separation...
Many clients describe the Rule 401 financial statement as "a giant pain," "putting square pegs into round holes," or "the most annoying thing I've ever done in my life." While filling out a financial statement can often be fairly simple, sometimes it can take days or...
On August 30, 2016, President Obama signed the instrument of ratification for the Hague Convention on International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance. A White House press release of the same date describes the Convention's "numerous...
Recognizing a child's need/right to receive financial support from both parents - even when those parents are apart - the DOR employs various methods to assist families in enforcing court-ordered child support obligations. For example, upon receipt of a Court's child...
In a recent appeal arising from a post-divorce modification action, Hoegen v. Hoegen (14-P-1491), the Massachusetts Appeals Court decided that income realized from vested restricted stock units (RSUs) must be included in the calculation of child support. In doing so,...
In a recent decision, a panel of the Massachusetts Appeals Court considered a Probate and Family Court's modification judgment ordering the payment of additional child support that was calculated based upon the portion of the parties' joint income in excess of...
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