Christina Rowe opted for her ex-husband’s share in their house instead of alimony after he spent a month in jail for skipping child support. Rowe figures that, over time, the move saved her about $20,000 in taxes.

Tax tips aren’t thrown around a lot during divorces, when emotional grenades are more likely to be tossed. But estranged spouses can save a lot by working together calmly on alimony, the sale of the house, income-tax filing status and timing of the divorce.

“Smart people say ‘I hate you, but I hate the Internal Revenue Service more,’ ” says Diana L. Mercer, an attorney and divorce mediator at Peace Talks Mediation Services in Playa del Ray, Calif., and co-author of the book Your Divorce Advisor.

Every divorce is different, so ignore anything that seems like blanket tax advice. It’s important to consult a good advisor, perhaps a lawyer or CPA, for the best approach.

In the case of Rowe, the trade-off between alimony and the house worked out. She would have had to pay tax on alimony because it is considered taxable income, but she didn't owe anything on the share of the house because property can be transferred tax-free in a divorce settlement. What saved taxes in her circumstances might not apply to others, however.

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I ran across a David Letterman-ish list of the Top Ten remarks you should never make to the justice who is presiding at your divorce hearing:

10. “So she gets the gold and I get the shaft?”
9. “I don’t really think you would have ruled that way if I'd been a guy [gal].”
8. “I’m really not comfortable raising my right hand and repeating after anyone.”
7. “I’m not hiding my income, so help me God.”
6. “Why are you picking on me?”
5. “No court is going to tell me what to do.”
4. “You’ll have to wait a minute — my cell-phone’s ringing.”
3. “I don’t have time for this.”
2. “You’re the one who should have a psych eval.”
1. “With all due respect, Your Honor, have you ever been through a divorce?"

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New marriage legislation in Kenya may bring some order to a mishmash of regulations and tradition that currently govern relationships in this East African nation.

No less than nine laws are applicable in Kenya today, including the African Christian Marriage and Divorce Act, the Hindu Marriage Act, and my personal favorite, the Married Women Property Act of England of 1872, which determines the property rights of spouses, particularly in divorce. Check the date on that legislation!

The role of a dowry in Kenyan society will be weakened, as the Marriage Bill 2007 specifies that it should not affect the validity of a marriage in any way. “Default or part payment of bride price or dowry should not to be considered as a ground for invalidating a marriage,”says law professor Githu Muigai, who headed the commission drafting the new bill.

Couples — or at least the women — in what are known as “come-we-stay” relationships will be pleased with the law, because it will make them the equivalent of common-law marriages. Provincial administrators will be authorized to register come-we-stay couples as man and wife those if they have “stayed” together for at least two years.

Some reformers were surprised that polygamous marriages were given the official stamp of approval But there was one condition: The man must be upfront with his intention to spread “Big Love” before his first marriage.

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The new passport regulations have thrown a wrench in travel plans, and meant weeks or even months of waiting for thousands of Americans this summer. And that passport has been extremely costly for a select few who are ignoring their child support obligations.

That’s because the State Department denies passports to noncustodial parents who owe more than $2,500 in support payments. According to the Associated Press, a passport cost a U.S. businessman now living in China $311,491 in back payments and another planning a Dominican Republic vacation had to cough up $45,849.

States have reported collecting at least $22.5 million through the Passport Denial Program so far in 2007. The money is then forwarded to the parent to whom it was owed.

Jeanette Dean of Seattle had to tap into her retirement savings to pay the basics for her 12-year-old son, when the state of Washington was unable to help her collect delinquent child support payments. But this year she got a “windfall” of $36,000 through the passport program.

Delinquent parents can reapply for a passport once their debt is paid. But some people never learn. A boxer paid $39,000 in back payments to the state of Nevada, but then lost his passport. In order to fight overseas this year he needed a replacement, so his promoter had to lend him almost $9,000 to cover his new child support debts.

Too many years in the ring, or what?

Chances are you’ve read about people trapped in unhappy marriages because they couldn’t sell their home, or couples whose lifestyles took a nosedive when they divorced.

Well, this weekend The New York Times ran an interesting story about real estate facilitating divorce!

For a number of years, Michele Kleier, a realtor on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, had a client who called her regularly to check on the price she could list her 9-room co-op for.

When the market was at its peak, the woman planned to divorce her husband, sell the apartment and live on her share of the profits.

This client went through with her plan, and now lives in a California condo, where she raves about the weather and revels in the distance she put between herself and her ex. “The real estate market allowed her to buy her freedom,” says Kleier.

Brokers and attorneys alike agree that the red-hot New York City real estate market has opened up a world of possibilities for unhappy couples. Up until 2006, it wasn’t that unusual to see home prices rise 20 or 30 percent a year, and though appreciation has slowed down, sales and market value haven’t. The price of the average Manhattan apartment this summer was $1.3 million. And the $3 million apartment is now the $7 million apartment. Half of that is a lot.

Gary Becker, an economist at the University of Chicago, has studied survey data and concludes that any couple who see a drastic rise (or drop) in net worth is at risk of divorce.

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You’ve heard of fake designer handbags from Hong Kong, of course, and a host of other consumer goods that are not what they seem to be. But how about fake divorces?

Yes, China has now taken the lead in bogus divorces, or “convenience divorces,” as they are called there.

Divorce was actually quite rare in China until the country began economic reforms in the late 1970s. How did economic policy effect divorce? Well, you needed the permission of your work unit’s superior to even start the process.

Divorce rates began to shoot up, reaching 1.9 million in 2006. But there are suspicious patterns to many of these ruptured unions.

Welfare payments in Beijing, for example, are allotted per household, irrespective of the number of people in the home. According to a survey of 30 households receiving benefits in the Fushuijing neighborhood of Beijing, 20 of them were divorced couples who still lived together after they qualified as separate households under the social security program.

Or consider the 86 couples in one small Sichuan village who suddenly filed for divorce. Part of the village was to be demolished for a development project and villagers were to be compensated for their losses on the basis of “households.” After receiving compensation as two households, guess how many of these couples remarried?

There are many other instances like these, and to have 1,000 couples split up simultaneously in a single province is not unusual.

Chinese officials are well aware they are being scammed, but unless there is a sudden nationwide outbreak of honesty, there is little they can do.

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Forget the image you have of a private eye as a hard-bitten, middle-aged man in a rumpled suit from Men's Wearhouse. More and more investigators are women — and they're finding a booming business in child custody cases and in tracking down cheating spouses.

Onesuch P.I. is Anji Fussell, who runs the She Spies Private Eye agency in Round Rock, Texas, just outside of Austin. "We're very busy," she told Channel 42 News, a CBS affiliate in Austin. And she's sure that a lot of her success is due to the fact that she's a woman. Most of her business is from divorced parents who want to know if their kids are being taken care of properly — "Are they leaving their children with babysitters and going out partying?" One male client who shared custody with his ex-wife was concerned about just this thing.

It turned out he was right, and when Fussell turned her video over to a judge, the man was awarded primary custody. Fussell is a mother herself, and it's important to her that kids "end up in the right home." And she also believes that being a woman in this field gives her a compassionate advantage that Sam Spade could never have.

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It was supposed to be a done deal.

When Britney Spears and Kevin Federline's divorce became final on July 30, both had signed off on continuing joint custody of 22-month-old Sean Preston and 10-month-old Jayden James. Supposedly, K-Fed had some reluctance, given Britney's somewhat erratic public behavior and her marginal grasp of parenting skills. Nevertheless, he agreed.

Now, sources have told E! News that Federline's attorney has filed papers requesting primary physical custody of his children.

Perhaps that's because in little more than a week since the divorce, Britney has been photographed frolicking with a college-age extra from her video shoot in a pool atop the L.A. Standard Hotel and making the cover of US Weekly. Then she accidentally rammed her Mercedes into a station wagon in the parking lot of a strip mall. Fair enough — we all have fender-benders. But Britney just drove away, without leaving a note. All of this was caught on film by paparazzi. After waiting a few days for Britney to do the right thing, her "victim" has just filed a police report, according to Perez Hilton.

Does she want her kids taken off her hands, or what?

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If there were an awards show for divorce — and that’s not out of the realm of possibility — Anne Heche and Coley Laffoon would surely be in the running for “Best Acrimonious Celebrity Divorce.”

The estranged couple has been fighting over everything from their five-year-old son Homer to bed linens they used during their five-year marriage.

Laffoon currently has full-time custody of Homer in Los Angeles while Anne films her ABC-TV show, "Men In Trees," in Vancouver, Canada. Heche had originally asked for sole custody.

The pair then started getting petty, trying to divide everything from their household furniture to their bed linens. A Los Angeles judge has now asked the couple to submit to psychological, drug and alcohol testing so the court can determine the best living situation for Homer.

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Spouses having an affair in Italy will think twice about using their car for trysts.

An Italian judge has ruled that wives or husbands who suspect infidelity are entitled to bug their spouse’s car in the search for incriminating evidence. The ruling was handed down in Brescia, in northern Italy, where a private detective agency specializing in infidelity cases had been planting microphones and satellite tracking devices in the cars of cheating spouses.

After some of the devices were found, police charged 22 people – including the P.I.s, the mechanics and the suspicious spouses – with “invasion of privacy.”

But Judge Lorenzo Benini ruled that the planting of bugging devices in a car, “however disconcerting this may be” was “not a criminal offense.” The judge added that a law forbidding bugging applied only to homes.

The wrath of cheated husbands or wives is a perennial theme of Italian films, from Divorce, Italian Style with Marcello Mastroianni to Amore mio, aiutami (“Help Me, My Love”) starring Monica Vitti.

And a recent survey in Donna Moderna, a women’s magazine, said that 92 per cent of Italian women would not forgive their husbands for betraying them.

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