[Mr Rogers]

I don’t think this bill will pass. I’m beginning to think it has been sabotaged by those who don’t want tax reform. It really is looking like a deliberate attempt to prevent passage.

I’d love to see business taxes cut, and it doesn’t look like this bill will hurt me much - but it has lots of politically stupid stuff added in. GOP-E working to keep a Democrat tax system?

[Milton Miteybad]

I don’t think this bill will pass. I’m beginning to think it has been sabotaged by those who don’t want tax reform. It really is looking like a deliberate attempt to prevent passage.

I was thinking the same thing. The party paying alimony/spousal maintenance does not have the use of the cash used to pay the amounts decreed. In truth and in fact, it's not income to the party paying it. There is really no basis for taxing the payor, because the payee is the one who actually realizes the income.

It only makes sense from an income tax standpoint if they allow a deduction to the paying party for alimony paid and charge it a taxable income to the party receiving it, which is the current setup.

This proposal is akin to that hare-brained scheme proposed by the Clinton Administration back in the 1990s to assess a tax against the putative value of a house with a paid-off mortgage. The reasoning (such as it was) went: "These folks aren't paying monthly mortgage payments or rent; therefore, the amount they're NOT spending on housing constitutes taxable income."

Yeah, that was a stupid idea, too. But it didn't prevent Democrats from proposing it. Now, apparently Congressional Republicans have become just as stupid today as the Dems were then.