178 W. Va. 563 - Cross v. Cross’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
120 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 122 later decisions — most recently December 2016 · most notably 547 So. 2d 766 - Nichols v. Tedder (1989), 77 Md. App. 750 - Wassif v. Wassif (1989)
120 state decisions — followed in 25 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 152
Relies on Hines v. Davidowitz · Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul · 15 Cal. 3d 838 - In Re Marriage of Brown · Kissinger v. Halperin · Seafarers International Union v. Stone
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 122 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““When a court is required to divide vested pension rights that have not yet matured as an incident to the equitable distribution of marital property at divorce, the court should be guided in the selection of a method of division by the desirability of disentangling parties from one another as quickly and cleanly as possible. Consequently, a court should look to the following methods of dividing pension rights in this descending order of preference unless peculiar facts and circumstances dictate otherwise: (1) lump sum payment through a cash settlement or off-set from other available marital assets; (2) payment over time of the present value of the pension rights at the time of divorce to the non-working spouse; (3) a court order requiring that the non-working spouse share in the benefits on a proportional basis when and if they mature.””
9 later decisions quote this exact passage“----In the 94 percent of all divorces that are concluded by voluntary settlement, the custodial parent is given a new bargaining chip that, depending upon the economic circumstances, may be of significant value. Furthermore, when the dependency exemption is allocated to the non-custodial parent on a year-to-year basis[,] the custodial parent must sign a waiver to allow the noncustodial parent to take the exemption. This simple mechanical requirement provides the custodial parent with an opportunity to collect back support payments every April 15th. In light of the low level of compliance with alimony and child support awards, this scheme hardly seems ill-conceived from points of view other than the [Internal Revenue Service]’s. The facts of life are that income tax exemptions are valuable only to persons with income, and up to a certain point, the higher the income the more valuable exemptions become because of the progressivity of the federal income tax. In this regard, it is to be remembered that the federal government is not providing every custodial parent with a cash grant under [ 26 U.S.C. § 152 (e) ]. Rather, [Section 152(e) ] provides an economic benefit that is of significantly greater value to a parent with income than it is to a parent without income. Consequently, it seems only reasonable that the trial judge should allocate the dependency exemption to the parent in the highest tax bracket, and then enhance (or reduce) the value of the cash child support payments ”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“The present rules governing the allocations of the dependency exemption are often subjective and present difficult problems of proof and substantiation. The Internal Revenue Service becomes involved in many disputes between parents who both claim the dependency exemption based on providing support over the applicable thresholds. The cost to the parties and the Government to resolve these disputes is relatively high and the Government generally has little tax revenue at stake in the outcome. The committee wishes to provide more certainty by allowing the custodial spouse the exemption unless that spouse waives his or her right to claim the exemption. Thus, dependency disputes between parents will be resolved without the involvement of the Internal Revenue Service.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.