Divorce Child Support
The underlying principle is that the payment of child support should suffice for the following expenses of the children.
- Medication
- Education
- Clothing
- Shelter
- Food
Accordingly, the court dwells on the following issues while deciding this award.
- The custodial parent's earning ability
- The paying capacity of the non custodial parent
- The child's age: Older children would need more money as compared to infants and young children
- The requirements of the child: A healthy child is in need of less money as compared to a developmentally disabled or sickly child
A common method of computing child support is as follows.
- First, the gross monthly income of each parent is found out
- The following deductions are made to the above value
- Child support and spousal support paid to a third-party
- Medical insurance disbursed to the child
- The value so obtained is the adjusted income
- Each parent's adjusted income is divided by the combined gross income. This will yield the percentages of each parent
- The guidelines table of the relevant state is referred to and the basic child support amount is found out
- The following values are added to the above amount
- Educational costs
- Extraordinary medical costs
- Work related child care costs
- This amount is called the total support obligation
- The total support obligation is multiplied by the percentages of each parent. The 2 amounts so obtained are to be disbursed by each parent
- If the parents share physical custody of the children, a different method has to be used
- The amount obtained by such calculations is rebuttable
Here are some topics associated with divorce child support:
Information about state specific divorce child support:
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