If I am calling . remove() on the currently focused element when another element is focused on, a change event is never triggered by the live code in IE.

The problem is  Focusout is called after the element is already removed, preventing live from calling testChange to trigger the change.

To fix this, jQuery should use the beforedeactivate event like:

1. beforedeactivate: testChange,

This might be difficult to make a test case that you don't have to do manually, but I will try.