Military Divorce Child Support

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The rules and procedures for child support meant for civilian parents differ from those of military service members. To start with the income of the service member has to be found out. This is done by referring to the following documents.

  • Attorney General tax chart
  • Military pay chart
  • Leave and earning statement

Calculation of Military Divorce Child Support

After the pay of a service member has been found out in the first step, the next steps are as follows.

  • The annual income is calculated: This is an addition of all the monthly incomes
  • The annual income is divided by 12. The resulting amount is termed as the 'gross monthly income'
  • The Attorney General Tax Chart is referred to and the 'gross monthly income' is applied to it
  • For each child, the permissible percentage is found out. The 'gross monthly income' is multiplied by this percentage

The amount so obtained is the child support amount. In addition to this, a service member is also responsible for the following expenses.

  • Child care costs: When a service member is deployed, it is not possible for him/her to help the custodial parent regarding caring for the child. During this phase, the child care costs might increase
  • Health insurance: It is expected that military members would arrange for the health insurance of dependent children

Some allowances like clothing allowance and housing allowance are added to the pay of the military service member.

Percent payment of Military Divorce Child Support

Some custodial parents complain that they are not being given the complete ordered amount of child support. The background is that frequently the payer lacks adequate disposable income to permit a deduction of the complete support amount.

The Consumer Credit Protection Act has declared that 50 to 65 percent of the disposable earnings may be deducted for reasons of child support. The following table would clarify the rules in this regard.

The payer has accrued an arrearage The payer has furnished proof that he/she is offering more than 50 percent of the support of dependents excluding those for whom the support amount is to be deducted Percentage of disposable earnings
Yes No 65
No No 60
Yes Yes 55
No Yes 50

Multiple Child Support Income Withholding Orders

Let us assume that the payer earns a disposable amount that can suffice for the payments of complete amounts of all the orders. In such a case, complete payments of all orders are authorized.

At times, a situation opposite to the above exists. Then, as per Federal Law a pro rata section of the available income is disbursed for every obligation. In this method, the amounts of each order are divided by the total amount of disposable earnings. In this way, the pro rata share is found out. This percentage of the disposable income is disbursed for each obligation.

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