Sheer Stupidity 001

"The Court" is out of touch with reality.  Appellant believed that no alimony could be verified as "needed" until Appellee's real estate assets were identified.  Petitioner had enough income for "the Court" to find that "her" Hilton Head timeshare(s) were non-marital but not enough to pay any legal fees.

Appellee’s Response to Motion to Supplement the Record is viewable at  https://edca.5dca.org/DCADocs/2012/3815/123815_35_05152013_12144153_e.pdf.

The Court ordered the mortgages to be paid out of Appellant’s employer’s 401k until the account was exhausted.  This had the consequence that all the funds used to pay the mortgages were taxed as ordinary income. 

The Appellant paid off the mortgages so that his “income” would not be over $48,000 more than it should be/need be.

The Court’s major concern, as described in the first complete paragraph on page three is:

“The point is that they should equally share in the tax write-off from the payment of the second and third mortgage.  She’s going to pay the first mortgage, so she gets the entire write-off from the payment of the first mortgage.”

The Court did not allow mortgage payments to be made out of required minimum distributions from accounts other than Harris until that account was exhausted.  Not good tax planning.

The Court “found” that the Apellant had income over $9,000 per month.  This included double counting of the required minimum distribution from a pre-marital 403b which should not be included at all.  It also included double counting for Dreyfus IRA.

The payments, as described in the Amended Final Order, generated additional tax liabilities and increased Appellant’s Part B Medicare premium by about $200 per month.  The Court undid the Medicare premium increase by an 8-month “nunc pro tunc”.

One of four issues raised by Appellee is that the Court did not distribute husband's bank account income.  During most of this case, Drefus Liquid Assets did not pay any "interest."  Husband's bank account income is far less than what he lost by maintaining a significant position in readily available cash.

“The Court” was concerned about tax write-offs when it should have been concerned about Petitioner complying with the mandatory disclosure list and filing a credible Financial Affidavitt.  The Court would have seen the wisdom in no alimony and have devoted its attention to developing a fair and equitable distribution of assets.

I want to see the CPA’s findings that Ms. Hodge needs alimony.

(DR)2H