What this line means
Alimony or separate maintenance payments you paid under a divorce or separation agreement executed before January 1, 2019. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the alimony deduction for agreements executed after 2018 — if your agreement is dated 2019 or later, you cannot deduct alimony payments. You must enter the recipient’s Social Security number on line 19b and the date of the original agreement on line 19c.
Does this apply to you?
- You paid alimony under a divorce or separation agreement executed before 2019
- You paid separate maintenance under a pre-2019 court order
- Your pre-2019 agreement was modified after 2018 but the modification did not adopt the new tax rules
Easy to overlook
Post-2018 agreements eliminate the deduction entirely If your divorce or separation agreement was executed on or after January 1, 2019, you cannot deduct alimony payments. 1 The change applies to the date the agreement was executed, not when the divorce was filed. Some filers whose divorce process started before 2019 but whose agreement was finalized after 2018 assume they qualify — they do not. The execution date on the agreement controls. General filing pattern — post-2018 alimony claimed as deduction
Child support payments are never deductible Amounts designated as child support in your divorce agreement cannot be deducted on this line. Only payments that qualify as alimony under federal tax law are deductible. 2 If your agreement does not clearly distinguish alimony from child support, or if payments are reduced when a child reaches a certain age, the IRS reclassifies part of the payment as nondeductible child support. IRS Publication 504 — Divorced or Separated Individuals
Watch out for this
Failing to enter the recipient’s Social Security number on line 19b. The IRS uses this SSN to match your deduction against the recipient’s income. If you leave line 19b blank, the IRS disallows your deduction. If the recipient refuses to provide their SSN, you can request it using Form W-7.
Footnotes
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IRS Publication 504, Divorced or Separated Individuals, Alimony Paid (Post-2018). https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p504.pdf ↩
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IRS Publication 504, Divorced or Separated Individuals, Child Support vs. Alimony. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p504.pdf ↩