Hello everyone,
When my ex and I split up after 9 years. I was feeling pretty upset about it because it was by my choice. So let’s say that I was really not up to fighting the fight as much as she was. We decided to go to mediation ($7000) to hammer out the separation agreement. This was going well until the topic of spousal support came up.
My ex-wife runs a home daycare and has since my son was born. We have 2 kids 9 and 5. Therefore is considered self employed. The problem was that she had not done her 2009 business taxes, so we ended up finally using her 2008 taxes to determine about spousal support. Well in 2008 we lived in the country were her daycare suffered due to lack of children. In 2009 we were in the city and it was always a full house.
So instead of using her salary at the $36,000 she made in 2009 we used the $16,000 that she made in 2008. After a lot of protesting on my part the mediator told me not to worry that the spousal support would go down the following year as we would just use the previous years T4/business tax statement to revisit the spousal support and always be a year behind.
My problem is when we sat down the next year and she used her earnings from 2009 which is what we should have used during our mediation, the computer that calculates spousal support stated that she should get $0 a month. I think had she shown up with her 2009 earnings for mediation, I would not be on the bill for spousal support for 7 to 15 years. In fact spousal support probably would have been out of the question.
Her salary 34,000 (net) + 10,464 (CS) + 3600 (SS) + 5292 (gov’t credits/breaks) = $53,356.00 (net give or take 2k)
My Salary 58,000- 18,000 (taxes) – 14,064 (CS & SS) – 792.00 (college fund) – 828.00 (mandated life insurance) = $24,316.00 (net give or take 1k)
Also the mediator asked me to get a sample layoff package from my employer stating what they would have offered me had they laid me off the day I left the house. I was then told by the mediator that that layoff sample is a marital asset and that I had to pay her half of this non-existent money. Has anyone else encountered this?
So my question is this. Should I take our agreement and throw it out and take my chances with a judge in family court? Do you think the judge would see through all the mess and realize that she in fact used a much lower salary from 2008 for negotiation purposes and that she has no intentions of changing her situation and is very content running the daycare?
Thanks for reading this post and look forward to your answers.
When my ex and I split up after 9 years. I was feeling pretty upset about it because it was by my choice. So let’s say that I was really not up to fighting the fight as much as she was. We decided to go to mediation ($7000) to hammer out the separation agreement. This was going well until the topic of spousal support came up.
My ex-wife runs a home daycare and has since my son was born. We have 2 kids 9 and 5. Therefore is considered self employed. The problem was that she had not done her 2009 business taxes, so we ended up finally using her 2008 taxes to determine about spousal support. Well in 2008 we lived in the country were her daycare suffered due to lack of children. In 2009 we were in the city and it was always a full house.
So instead of using her salary at the $36,000 she made in 2009 we used the $16,000 that she made in 2008. After a lot of protesting on my part the mediator told me not to worry that the spousal support would go down the following year as we would just use the previous years T4/business tax statement to revisit the spousal support and always be a year behind.
My problem is when we sat down the next year and she used her earnings from 2009 which is what we should have used during our mediation, the computer that calculates spousal support stated that she should get $0 a month. I think had she shown up with her 2009 earnings for mediation, I would not be on the bill for spousal support for 7 to 15 years. In fact spousal support probably would have been out of the question.
Her salary 34,000 (net) + 10,464 (CS) + 3600 (SS) + 5292 (gov’t credits/breaks) = $53,356.00 (net give or take 2k)
My Salary 58,000- 18,000 (taxes) – 14,064 (CS & SS) – 792.00 (college fund) – 828.00 (mandated life insurance) = $24,316.00 (net give or take 1k)
Also the mediator asked me to get a sample layoff package from my employer stating what they would have offered me had they laid me off the day I left the house. I was then told by the mediator that that layoff sample is a marital asset and that I had to pay her half of this non-existent money. Has anyone else encountered this?
So my question is this. Should I take our agreement and throw it out and take my chances with a judge in family court? Do you think the judge would see through all the mess and realize that she in fact used a much lower salary from 2008 for negotiation purposes and that she has no intentions of changing her situation and is very content running the daycare?
Thanks for reading this post and look forward to your answers.
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