Q: is Military pension to an ex considered spousal support?

A: Usually a civil pension (pre-retirement) is divided in a divorce a part of the property division. However the court when setting the amount of spousal support will take into account how much income each spouse has at the time that the spousal support is going to be paid. So if at the time of the divorce a pension is in pay-out status the court could be asked by the Attorney's for the parties to factor in the amount of the pension being paid to one spouse in determining how much spousal support they should be paying the other spouse. If splitting the pension is an option the Attorneys might ask for that. If the pension can be split then there may or may not be a reason to order additional spousal support to be paid. So it could be several options or some combination.

Here is the tricky part. Military pensions are usually subject to federal law so a State court can only order a split of the pension if Federal Law allows that. Years ago I took a seminar and there was an entire section on military pensions and I haven't had to deal with any military pensions recently so even that information might be out of date. But the one thing that still holds true, is an Attorney will need to investigate the type of military pension, whether it is a future pension or whether it is already in pay-out status, and then the Attorney will have to research what options are available for this type of military pension in terms of dividing the pension or paying spousal support where the spousal support order is served on the military pension and paid with that money. Once one has all the information, there is usually one solution that stands out as the best solution for all parties. Keep in mind that spousal support is taxable to the recipient and tax deductible by the payor.