Ricardo and Kathy Mendez divorced in 2013. Under the divorce decree, Ricardo is required to pay alimony of $3,000 per month and child support for their daughter, Sheri, of $2,000 per month. Ricardo owns and operates a consulting business in Pasadena, Ca. In 2019, at age 17, Sheri married the multibillionaire inventor of repclear.com, a website that allows individuals to cleanse their social media pages of all unacceptable content with a few simple clicks. As a result, Sheri has substantial individual wealth of her own and no longer needs the child support. Sheri and Ricardo discussed Sheri's new wealth and agreed that Ricardo would cease child-support payments immediately (which he did). Ricardo has a copy of the e-mail exchange with Sheri, and a reasonable reading of those e-mails would indicate that Sheri agreed to the reduction. Kathy did not pursue the matter with Ricardo because she also benefitted from Sheri's wealth and did not see the need for any more child-support payments, but she did continue to receive her alimony and include the monthly $3,000 as income. Ricardo does not have any contemporaneous documentation of Kathy's acquiescence to the decision to reduce child support other than Sheri informing him of her mother's agreement through a telephone conversation. The divorce decree did not contain any stipulation that if Sheri married or attained substantial wealth, child support could stop. Prepare a tax memo to the Mendez File that communicates your findings concerning the effect of Ricardo ceasing child-support payment on his ability to deduct alimony before and after Sheri's marriage.

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