"Look I've been doing this for 50 years," he says early in the negotiations. "I know how this case is going to come out within a few dollars." Find a fair way to settle quickly, he says, and you can save enough in legal fees to send your kid to college. Or, you can fight tooth and nail, he adds, "and I'll send my grandchildren to college." His warnings only work some of the time.
This year though, some estranged spouses have a more powerful incentive than ever to call a truce: President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul eliminates the deduction for alimony payments — for divorces finalized starting in 2019.