I read the Senate’s original and the Committee Substitute bills. The original bill addresses the serious flaws in Florida alimony law. The committee substitute bill that was forwarded by the Judicial Committee does essentially nothing to address the flaws in Florida alimony law.
For example:
- The original bill eliminates compounded alimony of different types. The substitute bill retains the court’s ability to apply multiple types of simultaneous alimony.
- The original bill makes alimony tax-deductible to the payer and taxable to the receiver. The substitute bill makes it possible for the court to punitively make payments taxable to the payer.
- The original bill establishes defined limits on alimony duration, where alimony can be required for up to 50% of a marriage duration (60% for long-term marriages over 20 years). The substitute bill allows short-term alimony for a period matching the duration of the marriage, and simply renames permanent alimony as long-term instead of permanent, but it must be paid until either the payer or recipient dies.
- The original bill ends alimony at retirement age. The substitute bill keeps alimony into retirement.
- The original bill allows courts to require a life insurance policy to sustain alimony for the duration. The substitute bill allows courts to require a life insurance policy or bond that the payer must fund to cover the duration of the alimony (possibly the lifetime of the recipient).
- The original bill extends long-term marriage to marriages lasting 20 or more years (long enough for early-marriage children to graduate from high-school). The substitute bill retains long-term marriage at 17 years and institutes mandatory, permanent alimony if you choose to divorce after17 years.
- The original bill removes established standard of living from the equation, and substitutes income averaged over the last 3 years. The substitute bill retains a vague clause requiring the court to consider established standard of living.
- The original bill separates assets brought into the marriage from assets acquired during the marriage. The substitute bill includes any assets that you brought into the marriage as part of the court’s alimony considerations. This means that if you owned a house or a boat prior to marriage, they now become part of the court’s subjective alimony consideration.
- Finally, the original bill takes adultery out of the equation when awarding alimony. The substitute extends the original law to include the consideration of adultery and any costs of adultery into the punitive alimony award.

My short take: I support the original bill and wholeheartedly oppose the Judicial Committee substitute written by Senator Flores.
- If your marriage is not so good and you have less than 17 years, the original bill gives you time to see if you can work things out without committing yourself to a lifetime of financial abuse. If you have kids in school, you might at least be able to get them out of school before deciding whether you’re going to stay together.
- If the substitute bill passes, you take a risk in ending your relationship before 17 years because Florida legal precedent has been awarding permanent alimony to marriages of less than 17 years, but the longer you wait, the worse-off you will be if you do decide to end your relationship. You will not have a choice to wait until your kids graduate. You will need to decide whether to take a risk on a punitive judgement earlier, or be forced into lifetime indebtedness.

Under current Florida statute, or under the substitute bill, I think that getting married means taking a gigantic risk on your future resources, even if the marriage doesn’t work as well as you’d hoped. In addition, the original law and the substitute bill give the alimony recipient no incentive to adjust, find a new partner, or re-educate and get a better job.

The original proposed bill (not the Judiciary Committee Substitute) gives a couple the chance to get married, see if it works, and separate with a reasonable time for the lesser-earning partner to adjust, find a new partner, re-educate, etc.

-Anonymous

I always look forward to your short and concise case summaries. Your a true gentlement and a scholar!!

http://dspnet.org/site/images/pdfs/eddie%20stephens.pdf

Great summary of the new changes. Your blog is great!