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  • Calculating Child Support

    Sorry that I am asking so many questions right now. I won't have an opportunity to get to a family law office until at least next week, and I am feeling overwhelmed by how much I really do not know.

    My ex and I are attempting to come to an agreement regarding child support and a parenting plan.

    1) For the past three years, they have lived exclusively with me and he has seen them intermittently (not consistently). He now has moved closer and wants them more often. If I have the children primarily, with my ex planning to have them every other weekend (with additional weekends when we agree to them), AND we split the summer and alternate holidays: what is our arrangement exactly? I have been trying to figure it out - we have never been to court, so my understanding is that we have joint legal custody, and I have sole physical custody and he has visitation? Or is it something else? Also, what does all that mean in a legal sense?

    2) I am confused about calculating child support. He has made a few payments in the last few years, but we have never really sorted it out. Is CS calculated initially on the previous year of income alone, or an average of the past three years? What about the following years calculations? Do I have to provide him with my income information if he doesn't want to pay anything for section 7 expenses? Do we use our incomes alone or household incomes (important: I have been a stay at home mom for the past year, so don't have income from the past year (my husband is working), but would from previous years. Ex does not work and is supported by his common-law partner, but did work in previous years).

    I hope that all made sense.

  • #2
    C/S is easy.

    Unless there is a near to average income due to inconsistant earnings or looking to impute higher (or lower), you use their current income. It is the easiest way to determine it. You say your ex moved, so he probably had to take a new job to be closer to the child. This would be a mitigating circumstance that would justify any decrease in support.

    Your income cannot be zero. Even if you are SAHM the courts have determined that each parent has the obligation to financially support your child. As a SAHM, you would have two choices, either impute your income to what you are capable of making (at worst full time min-wage) otherwise a court will drag your spouses income into the calculation. He too has an obligation to get work, otherwise his income will be treated the same way (either imputed or household).

    Each parent should (the reality is it rarely happens) be exchanging their notice of assessments each year and adjusting c/s and s7 expenses based on their income.

    Comment


    • #3
      My ex has said that his last three years income are:

      2010- $6,200.
      2009-$15,175.
      2008- $14,134.

      Does this constitute inconsistent earnings? Man, CS is a pain in my butt so far!

      He has not moved to take a job, he quit his job to move and has not found a new job yet. He is talking about going back to school, but is not willing to work or not able to find work in his fields (he is employable in two fields, as he has two different college diplomas).

      Thanks for your help so far.

      Comment


      • #4
        I would simply impute an income equal to full time min-wage, which will be between $18k-$20k. He could get a McJob and work full time and make more then what he has been.

        I don't know if the tables contemplate incomes as low as the the amounts you provided.

        Comment


        • #5
          They don't for $6,200, but they would for the other amounts.

          I hate everything about this process so far. Imputing income involves going to court, and I genuinely don't want to have to do that. He has offered to pay the table amount based on an average of those years - $11,836. The tables also go that low. I could just accept this and move on.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Ames View Post
            They don't for $6,200, but they would for the other amounts.

            I hate everything about this process so far. Imputing income involves going to court, and I genuinely don't want to have to do that. He has offered to pay the table amount based on an average of those years - $11,836. The tables also go that low. I could just accept this and move on.
            If you are willing to work with this, it would probably be best. The numbers at the end of the day are substantially different anyway as you are effectively only talking a difference of tens of $$, not hundreds.

            Comment


            • #7
              Honestly, with what the difference would be, you are better off simply accepting the averaged income as a starting point, and recalculating each year based on the prior year's income.

              Is the hassle and conflict really worth what? 150/month extra?

              Comment


              • #8
                Heck no, this whole process is such an awful experience. I don't want any conflict at all, and that's why I have avoided CS discussion as much as possible. It has come up because my husband has become unhappy with the arrangement and feels I am letting my ex off easy while my husband shoulders the responsibility of supporting everyone. It's put me in an awkward position - but I feel terrible that my husband feels taken advantage of and I feel like I ought to be taking more of a stand for the kids sake too - they have a right to support from my ex.

                Anyway, I'll go with the averaged out income, I just wanted to be sure that it wasn't going to blow up in our faces because it is a completely wrong way of doing things.

                Hopefully this way my ex is contributing something and my husband feels better about that - I'm not too keen on a lot of resentments building up.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Well if the ex has never really paid CS, using the average income over the last three years as a starting point is perfectly acceptable.

                  If he's still making LESS than min wage full time hours next year, you may want to consider having an income imputed to him.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Thanks NBDad. That sounds reasonable to me.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      The biggest reason for that would be for you to get status quo of him actually PAYING established. Once you get that done, worry about the rest

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by NBDad View Post
                        Honestly, with what the difference would be, you are better off simply accepting the averaged income as a starting point, and recalculating each year based on the prior year's income.

                        Is the hassle and conflict really worth what? 150/month extra?
                        I agree 100%. Try to get an agreement to settle on the average of the 3 years. As NBDad points out the cost of litigating this for the extra cash won't work out for you in the long run at all.

                        Good Luck!
                        Tayken

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          One more question - sorry.

                          As far sharing our our NOAs, my ex wants to base the section 7 expenses off of my household income and off of just his income (not his household income). His reasoning is that I am married and he is not.

                          I got married last month, so previous NOAs from the last three years I was not married. He is common law but says they don't have to be considered common law until 3 years together or until their baby is born. Is this accurate? They have been living together for a couple of years now.

                          FYI, I did have some income on my last NOA (maybe $10,000) as I worked before moving. My ex has less income than that. Prior to last year (so the previous two years before that) we both worked.

                          I will submit my household income to him, it just seems weird to me. Since we are both in a similar situation where we are at home and our partners are working - but this was not the case on the previous years NOAs (even though we both had measly incomes for the most recent year). Sorry for being annoying with the questions.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Ex just emailed me saying that he looked at our schedule and he has the boys 32% of the time and he wants to re-adjust the schedule we made up so that he gets them 146 days of the year (40%). Our current agreement is alternating weekends, half the summer, alternating march break and holidays and half of Christmas Break.

                            He doesn't say why he suddenly wants this change or why 40% is so important, especially since he has not seen a whole lot of them over the last few years.

                            Just curious - does this affect child support? He hasn't made his first payment yet, but is supposed to start paying this month. Could his sudden interest in having them 40% of the time be related to this - does it affect it?

                            It seemed like a weird request - why wouldn't he just say he wanted to see them more than he is?

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              A little research around here would have told you the answer to that, as 40% is a particularly significant cutoff, yes, where CS switches from full to offset. His sudden desire to switch the schedule to exactly 40% implies that he has become aware of this significance, and wants to save himself some money by having the kids the bare minimum of time to accomplish this.

                              However, if your income and his income are both so low as to be effectively below minimum wage, it isn't going to make a difference. Under 40%, he owes you pretty close to zero due to his low income. Over 40%, he'll owe you zero, and you'll owe him zero.

                              So call his bluff. What I would suggest is that you offer that the kids' access time be divided exactly 50-50. Perfectly fair, hard to argue against, and good for the kids to have each parent involved equally in their lives. If he protests, you know it really is all about the money for him.

                              Then, you each impute an income on the other of minimum wage. At equal incomes, you will owe each other zero child support, and extraordinary expenses will be shared equally. But make sure you exchange tax info every year, in case one of you gets a job with greater income, because that will change things.

                              So, you get no CS, but the kids get more dad time, and you get more free time and fewer kid-related expenses. Everybody wins, as much as anybody can in a separation.

                              Forget the household income thing he's trying to convince you about. Neither of your partners' incomes has anything to do with your own child support obligations. These are not your partners' children. Obviously, the partners are helping support them, but it doesn't have anything to do with official CS amounts.

                              Comment

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