Martha K. Brown and James W. Brown, Jr. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue appeals a holding of the Tax Court that since under the law of the divorce state a husband’s obligation to pay alimony ended when his former wife remarried, payments made thereafter were not alimony and thus not income assessable to the wife.

Taxpayer Martha K. and James J. Neate were divorced on June 16, 1958 in Virginia, and he was required to pay her $40.00 per week as support for their two children and as alimony. In January 1964 Martha married James Brown, but Neate nevertheless continued the weekly payments of $40.00 throughout that year. The law of…