Table row won't contain elements with position:absolute

Answer 1

To quote from the spec:

The effect of 'position:relative' on table-row-group, table-header-group, table-footer-group, table-row, table-column-group, table-column, table-cell, and table-caption elements is undefined.

EDIT:

The only solution that I can see involves using :last-child (ie. no IE < 9) and good old vertical-align and text-align:

td:last-child {
    vertical-align: top;
    text-align: right;
    padding: 0;
    margin: 0;
}

Here's a working demo: http://jsfiddle.net/QU2zT/15/

I would also like to add that if you really don't want to change your markup and need to support IE you can use this solution combined with JavaScript.

PS: I haven't looked at (and won't comment on) the solution using divs as I see no point in writing that much markup to obtain a table, when there is already one. It will only be a maintenance nightmare.