Allyson
Hughes

The RN, CRNA, PA, or Physician

Whether you're on a hospital's payroll or working through a staffing agency, you earn a healthcare salary as a staff RN, CRNA, PA, hospitalist, or employed physician. Your income is the dominant number in any alimony calculation, and Florida's 2023 reforms shape how that calculation runs. Shift differentials, on-call pay, sign-on bonuses, and retirement contributions — 403(b), 401(a), pension — all belong in the net income figure the court uses. Healthcare compensation is rarely just a base salary, and the gross-to-net distance can be substantial.

Healthcare retirement plans also interact with equitable distribution in specific ways: pension QDROs, 403(b) division, and the order in which alimony and property questions get decided all shape the final picture. Alimony amount and property division are interrelated. A spouse who agrees to a higher alimony number before knowing how the property side will be valued, or who divides retirement assets before knowing what the alimony order will look like, is working with an incomplete picture. The alimony question and the property question are reasoned together, because the answer to one changes the answer to the other.

The HVAC, Electrical, Plumbing, or Construction Tradesperson

Whether you're a full-time employee with benefits or a 1099 subcontractor, you work in the trades — and your income is the thing alimony and equitable distribution calculations run through. If you're on payroll at a contracting company, a utility, or a union shop, your W-2 is the starting point, but bonuses, overtime, and benefits — health insurance, pension contributions, 401(k) match — all belong in the picture. If you work as a 1099 subcontractor — solo, day-rate, project-based — the income picture is more variable. Florida courts are required to look at earning capacity over time, not just what you made in your best year.

Under § 61.30, child support is calculated from each parent's net monthly income, and the statute defines net income as gross income from all sources minus statutorily allowed deductions. For a tradesperson, gross income includes wages, overtime, bonuses, commissions, business income from self-employment after ordinary and necessary business expenses, severance pay, and pension or retirement benefits. The court does not stop at last year's tax return. If a 1099 contractor had a banner year followed by a slow season, the court can examine multiple years of income history and impute earning capacity based on the pattern. For W-2 trades workers, pension contributions and 401(k) matching are part of the broader equitable distribution conversation, because retirement accumulated during the marriage is a marital asset subject to division.

The alimony framework operates the same way it does for any income earner — the 2023 reforms cap durational alimony at 35% of the difference between the parties' net monthly incomes — but the calculation depends entirely on how trades income is characterized in the first place. Allyson has argued trades-income calculations in Pasco County family courts for thirty years.

The Engineer, Accountant, Government Employee, or Mid-Level Manager

Whether you're an engineer, an accountant, a government employee, a mid-level manager, or you and your spouse both work corporate jobs in Tampa or Pasco, your life is built around two careers, school schedules, and the rhythm of dual-income parenting. Now the marriage is ending. The work involves a parenting plan, equitable distribution of what you've built together, and the financial framework that supports the children going forward. Florida law requires a parenting plan in every divorce involving minor children, and the plan has to address time-sharing, decision-making authority for education and healthcare, communication between households, and the practical logistics of how the children move between two homes.

The court evaluates the parenting plan against the twenty statutory factors set out in § 61.13, including each parent's capacity to maintain a stable, consistent routine, the demands of each parent's work schedule, and the developmental needs of the children at their current ages. For dual-career households, time-sharing arrangements that work well in theory can collide with the realities of two demanding work schedules, school calendars, and extracurricular commitments. The plan that gets entered as a final judgment is the plan the family lives with, and the court will not revisit it absent a substantial change in circumstances.

Equitable distribution sits alongside the parenting plan: the marital home, retirement accounts built by both spouses through years of payroll contributions, and the household finances accumulated during the marriage all have to be characterized, valued, and divided. Dual-career divorces have been part of Allyson's Pasco County practice for thirty years.

The Corporate Executive, Regional Director, or Agency Principal

Whether you're a corporate executive, a regional director, a car dealership owner, an insurance agency principal, or a real estate agency owner, the alimony calculation runs through an income figure built from more than your W-2. Deferred compensation, restricted stock units, stock options, executive benefits, and ownership distributions all belong in the net income picture the court uses — and Florida's 35% cap is calculated on that figure. Service business owners face a parallel question: owner distributions tell one story, the business's actual cash flow tells another, and the court needs to see both. Allyson has tried executive and service-business income disputes in Pasco County family courts for thirty years, drawing on long-standing relationships with forensic accountants, business appraisers, and tax counsel.

The Trade Owner — Electrical, Plumbing, HVAC, or Construction

You didn't inherit the business; you built it through early mornings, long seasons, and reinvestment in years when everyone else was spending. The valuation question is often more straightforward than for a medical practice, but the stakes are just as real. Equipment, accounts receivable, customer lists, the value of your name in the market — all of it can be drawn into the divorce if you're not careful.

The other question is how the business was funded. If you used marital funds to grow it, some portion may be marital property. Florida courts examine the source of capital, the nature of any spousal contribution, and the timing of the business's growth relative to the marriage to determine what portion, if any, is subject to equitable distribution. The goal is an honest accounting, not a fight for the sake of one. Allyson has settled and litigated trade-owner divorces in Pasco County for thirty years.

The Professional Who Owns the Practice

If you own a private practice — solo, partnership, or specialty group — the divorce conversation runs through the practice itself. The 35% alimony cap is real protection, but "35% of the net income difference" is still a number that requires careful argument. How owner distributions are classified, whether income is taken as salary or retained earnings, partnership buy-ins and capital accounts, what expenses run through the practice — all of it shapes the net income figure the court uses.

The practice also has to be valued for equitable distribution, and Florida courts distinguish between enterprise goodwill, which is a marital asset, and personal goodwill, which generally is not. That distinction matters substantially in what a spouse can claim against the practice's value, and it depends on how the practice is structured and how the work actually gets done. Practice valuation cases in Pasco County have been work Allyson has done for thirty years, drawing on long-standing relationships with forensic accountants, business appraisers, and tax counsel.

The Spouse Ending a Long Marriage

If you are ending a long marriage, you are unwinding a financial life built together. The retirement plan was built for two, the pension was earned across years of joint planning, and the Social Security claim was timed around a future you no longer share. All of that joint planning has to be sorted out, and Florida's 2023 alimony reforms changed how that work gets done.

The alimony framework operates differently depending on marriage length, with the statutory framework allowing durational alimony calculated as a percentage of marriage length, and the percentage rising for longer marriages. The 2023 reform also created retirement-based modification: when the paying spouse reaches normal retirement age, the alimony obligation can be revisited. That provision is real protection for the late-career payor and real risk for the recipient. Both sides need to understand what the trigger looks like before they agree to anything.

A former spouse who was married for the federally required period can claim Social Security retirement benefits on the higher earner's record without reducing the higher earner's own benefit. The eligibility rules are federal, but Florida courts count Social Security income when calculating alimony and support, so the benefit is part of the long-marriage financial picture. Allyson addresses Social Security as part of any long-marriage representation.

The other half of the conversation is everything that is not alimony or Social Security. Pension QDROs have to be drafted carefully because a careless one can cost the recipient significant money decades later. Division of 401(k) and IRA accounts carries tax consequences that depend on how the order is written. Health insurance after divorce is a meaningful expense, especially in the years before Medicare eligibility, and the cost has to be factored into the financial picture from the start.

The integrated financial structure of a long-marriage case — alimony, retirement, Social Security, health coverage — is what Allyson handles in long-marriage representation across Pasco County.