Are legal fees for attorney tax deductible?

Are attorney fees tax deductible?

• I was married to Someone in the military and resided in the state of Texas. My ex husband filed for our divorce in Texas although I had relocated to the state of Nevada and became a legal resident during this time. Texas had jurisdiction over our divorce because he filed for the divorce days before I had him served. Texas was the last place we had resided together even though we are both from Las Vegas, NV. I was forced to have to hire two attorneys to represent me because while I resided in Las Vegas I gave birth to our daughter. We separated when she was 8 months old, so she was a resident of Nevada because she was born here and never left the state to reside elsewhere.Nevada had then taken jurisdiction for child custody. Any who, over the course of two years I have paid over thousands to both attorneys. Not to mention, I have never received a penny from the Texas divorce judgment I received which is nearly $15,000.00. I also only received two payments for child support in the total of a year and a half. The third payment was a bounced check. This whole situation is still a mess and I need to know if I can write off attorneys fees from a divorce and child custody case? If there is anyone out there who can help give advice please let me know! Thank you!

• Answer:

  You can take an itemized deduction for the legal fees that were paid to try to collect alimony because alimony is taxable to you. However, you can't deduct legal fees paid for the collection of child support, since that's not taxable income.