Originally posted by sprdad
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But you have put yourself at a considerable disadvantage for not keeping CS accurate for the last ten years. You should have been updating CS regularly to match your income levels, and where the children live.
Sit down and do some math. Make a spreadsheet. Figure out what the CS should have been since your separation, based on you and your ex's income changes and access arrangements. Figure out what you actually paid. Total up the differences. That's the 'arrears' that have been accumulating. Do you owe her money because of your income increases, or would she owe you money because of you having one of the kids full time for a while? Whoever is owed money doesn't have much hope of ever seeing that since so much time has gone by. But keep it in mind for negotiations.
But, the important thing you want to consider now is what the current CS should be. For that, you need to know your current income, and your ex's current income.
Unfortunately, you have a challenging access arrangement for calculating CS. There are several systems for calculating CS when the children don't have the same access schedule, and I'm never sure which one is accurate or which one is used by judges. A search of this forum will turn them up, and unfortunately there can be several hundreds of dollars difference.
However, the method I mentally use, which I believe is mathematically the most fair, goes like this.
You put your CS for two kids and your ex's CS for two kids into a pretend account (a 'kitty'). You take money out of the pretend account in proportion to your access.
So you calculate your CS for two kids (amount X) and your ex's CS for two kids (amount Y). So the total money to support the kids is X+Y. You have 75% of the kids' time (1 kid full time and one kid half time) and your ex has the other 25%. So you should get 75% of that X+Y amount.
I assume you know your ex's income, because you ought to have been using it all along to calculate s7 proportions, but if you don't know it, estimate for now in your calculations, and make getting her income disclosure a priority.
So what is the difference between the CS you pay now, and the CS you have just calculated as more accurate? What difference would that make over the next few years? And lastly, how likely is your ex to argue and refuse to cooperate with adjusting CS and make you end up in court? You need to know all those things to decide if pushing for the change is worth it.
It could be as simple as a "hey, I did some math and it looks like with the changes in income and access, I should be paying you $10 less a month" - "okay" or as difficult as "hey, did you know that with the changes in income and access, you should be paying me $100 instead of me paying you $800? "Hell no!"
You can't figure out if it's worth pushing for, if you don't know the numbers. Do the number crunching and then decide.
Now remember when I told you to calculate the arrears, above? You may be able to use that in your negotiations. If the arrears worked out that you owed her money, then you can offer to pay those arrears if she agrees to the CS change now. After all, it's money that ought to have been with her all along, after all. Or, if the arrears would have been owed by her to you, you can offer to forgive them if she agrees to the CS reduction now. After all, you'd be unlikely to see them if it went to court, but she may not realize this.
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