Final answer:
The alimony recapture rules are aimed at distinguishing true alimony payments from property division or child support, to ensure fairness in tax treatments after divorce.
Step-by-step explanation:
The alimony recapture rules are designed to prevent a divorce settlement from being structured in such a way that what is essentially a division of property is mischaracterized as alimony. This mischaracterization would create undesired tax advantages. The correct answer to the question is to distinguish child support payments from alimony. The purpose is to ensure fairness in the taxation process following the dissolution of a marriage by ensuring that payments which truly qualify as alimony are deductible by the payer and includible as income by the recipient, rather than allowing non-deductible property settlements to be wrongly classified as deductible alimony.