Support Release Notes...

Release Notes for Version 11.02 

Economic Stimulus Bill.  We have updated the software for the Economic Stimulus bill.  Briefly, here are the key tax changes that are incorporated into Family Law Software: 

• The new, temporary, "Making Work Pay" credit of up to $400 ($800 if filing jointly).
• The Child Credit is now temporarily more refundable, which helps people whose income is so low that they don't owe any taxes.
• The Earned Income credit temporarily has a third, higher, tier, benefiting families with three or more children.
• The Hope credit for higher education temporarily extends for 4 years, with increased benefits, and more refundability. (This bundle of changes was dubbed "The American Opportunity Tax Credit.")
• The first $2,400 of unemployment compensation paid in 2009 (and 2009 only) is now tax-free.
• Congress included in this bill the now-annual one-year delay in the reversion of Alternative Minimum Tax thresholds to levels from the year 2000. (Congress did not wait until the end of December this year, as they have in past years, to make this change.)

The temporary provisions mostly are effective only in 2009 and 2010. 

Child Support and Spousal Support. Added "weekly" as an option for both child support and spousal support. 

Filing Status.  Enabled override of future filing statuses year by year.  You may use this to continue a filing status of “head of household” to any specified year before switching to “single.”  Or, continue “married filing separately” for an additional year before the divorce. 

Child.  Added ability to have “neither” parent custodial. 

Defined Benefit Pensions.  We changed “employee” to “participant,” for defined benefit pension plans, and also added the coverture numerator and denominator to the Pension Plan report. 

Budget Report.  There is now an option to show line numbers on the Budget Report. 

Quick Child-Support calculators.  We have added mortgage expenses and property taxes to quick Child-Support calculators for those states where those entries would affect the calculation of child support. 

Exhibit Numbers on Budget Report.  We modified the labels for Increment or Reset of Exhibit numbers.  “Increment is now “Keep Exhibit Numbers Fixed."  “Reset” is now “Renumber Exhibits From the Top." 

New York Pilot Test.  The software is being evaluated by the information technology group for the state of New York for a pilot program in which attorneys will send client files directly to judges.  In preparation for this test, we added the ability to encrypt data files and send them via SFTP.  We also added a mechanism for sending the data file to another attorney simultaneously and to look up the current list of participating judges from within the software. 

Bugs fixed. 

What If Analysis.  Fixed a small bug in that if alimony was “Quarterly” and you selected “copy from actual,” in What If Analysis, the result was wrong.  It is now correct. 

FICA on later years.  If you increased the “number of years” to show for the reports, we were not recalculating FICA for the later years.  That has been fixed.  

Combined Income Report.  On the Combined Income Report, the Federal Tax number was sometimes not correct.  (The bottom line was all right.)  That has been fixed. 

Payroll Deduction.  The Living Expense option “Payroll Deduction” now deducts correctly for Federal tax and FICA/Medicare.  But it is still not included in the calculation of taxes for Guideline purposes. 

Appreciation on Financial Assets.  For files before 11.01, when they were opened in release 11.01, the appreciation on financial investments was not working.  That has been fixed.
Real Estate.  When the mortgage balance was blank and the mortgage statement was in the Start Year, we were not calculating the payments correctly in that year.  That has been fixed. 

Long File Names.  The software would occasionally crash when opening files with very long file names.  That has been fixed.

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