What this line means
Alimony or separate maintenance payments you received under a divorce or separation agreement executed before January 1, 2019. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the tax treatment of alimony for agreements executed after 2018 — if your agreement is dated 2019 or later, alimony you receive is not taxable income and does not go here.
Does this apply to you?
- You received alimony under a divorce or separation agreement executed before 2019
- You received separate maintenance payments 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 divorce agreements make alimony nontaxable to the recipient If your divorce or separation agreement was executed on or after January 1, 2019, the alimony you receive is not taxable income. You do not report it anywhere on your return. Filers who divorced recently sometimes report alimony on this line because older guidance told them to. Check the date of your original agreement — it controls the tax treatment. 1 General filing pattern — post-2018 agreements reported as taxable
Modified agreements do not automatically follow the new rules A pre-2019 agreement that was modified after 2018 keeps the old tax treatment unless the modification expressly states that the new rules apply. The modification must specifically say that the repeal of the alimony deduction applies. If it does not, the original agreement date controls. 2 IRS Publication 504 — Divorced or Separated Individuals
Watch out for this
Entering alimony received without reporting the date of the original divorce or separation agreement on line 2b. The IRS uses this date to determine whether the old or new tax rules apply. Leaving line 2b blank when you report income on line 2a flags the return for review because the IRS cannot verify the correct tax treatment.
Footnotes
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IRS Publication 504, Divorced or Separated Individuals, Alimony. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p504.pdf ↩
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IRS Publication 504, Divorced or Separated Individuals, Instruments Executed or Modified After 2018. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p504.pdf ↩