The Trump tax plan which was enacted into law on December 22, 2017 has been touted for all its benefits in reducing corporate tax rates and streamlining taxes for individuals. One big loser of the Trump tax plan – unhappily married or soon to be married men. Perhaps because Trump is on his third wife and has an iron clad prenup which he has fine tuned over the years and perhaps because the conservative GOP party members who put “family first” have simply ignored or forgotten about most men who are toiling away in unhappy marriages and relationships; the new Trump tax plan eliminates alimony payments from the list of allowable itemized deductions for U.S. marriages on or after December 31, 2018.

This is terrible for men. According to a recent census taken in the U.S. of divorced couples, men are paying a whopping 97% of total alimony, despite the fact that 40% of households include higher wage earning women. The family court system in the U.S. as well as most other developed nations is a boondoggle for women. They divorce system is already setup in such a way that women get most of the benefits and men lose their life savings, their house and their future income to greedy ex-wives who game the divorce system and extract as many benefits as they can. Perhaps for this reason, the tax code in the U.S. changed after 1950 to allow divorced individuals (mostly men) who were shouldering the burdens of alimony payments to deduct these payments from their taxes. Although it did not completely eliminate the unfairness of the 50-50 divorce system where women were marrying wealthier or well-to-do men and later divorcing them for money and guaranteed monthly payments, it did at least provide some tax relief while turning the free money spousal support into “taxable income” for other spouse. No more.

Under the new tax scheme, if you get divorced after December 31, 2018, your out-sized alimony payments to your greedy ex-wife will no longer be tax deductible. That means if you earn $100K and are paying your ex-wife $40K in spousal support, you get 0 tax benefit for the support payments while your ex-wife does not have to pay any money on the free $40K in spousal income that she is receiving. Basically, this incentivizes your greedy ex-wife to continue to apply for more spousal support payments from you and stash them away “tax free” while you shoulder than entire tax burden for the income and support payments and get no benefit in return.

This elimination of the alimony deduction is ridiculous. Out of touch law makers believe this is good for the family because it will discourage divorce. History tells us otherwise. (Over 50% of marriages in modern Western civilizations now fail). Tax regulations have not changed or eliminated the decline in marriage rates and the increase in divorce rates. This is because tax and economic policies have not kept pace with gender issues, the rise of feminism in culture, economics and politics, and the general weakening of men in education and the workforce.

As men, we should not accept this bad fiscal policy and punishment designed to give women even more freebies and financial incentives to divorce us and take away our hard-earned incomes and live savings. In my opinion, if you are a man thinking of getting married and raising a family, either: (a) don’t get married and look for another arrangement; or (b) get an iron-clad prenup after consultation with no fewer than 3 good lawyers. If you are already in a bad marriage and thinking about getting divorced, you need to legally divorce before December 31, 2018, or get hit with the divorce penalty tax.

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