Childsupport or Lease??

[Jethrone]

What the heck is childsupport for?? In my case, I faithfully pay childsupport everymonth for my two children. I also, as per our divorce order, pay half of the children's extra-curricular activities. But I also receive (on what seems to be a monthly basis) requests for half of the school supplies, minor medical fees ($20-$30), clothes, etc, etc. It's starting to look like the money goes for only rent and food! If I count what would be her share, that's over $1500/month for food and rent! What's up with this??

 

[brand new life]

I just recently seperated, but my lawyer has been good on informing me of my rights as a father in our seperation.
From the way i understand it, child support is suport to cover all children expenses, except what falls into special expenses, like dance class or hockey. Food, clothes lunch & gas money should all fall into child support. Theres a chart that shows you exactly what amount you should be paying. For example if you make 40,000$/year you should pay 545$/month for 2 kids.
Now the only thing that i'm unclear about in this subject at this time, is does child care fall into child support or special expense. My lawyer says special expense, but her lawyer says child support. I like her lawyer's answer better on this subject.

 

[Brian]

The federal Child Support guidelines were put in place in an attempt to provide some type of baseline for support of children. There are no provisions to show the person making the payments on where this money is being spent. I would suggest that any parent would not deny their children support payments if law required a disclosure of expenditures. It is very clear; whichever parent has custody of the children has the upper hand in any child support issue unless they make more money then the other parent. Are the same considerations being made if the Father has custody of the children? For example you allude to the matter of childcare, your input as a father regarding childcare should be considered as well. I am assuming that this is an interim court order since you recently separated and I can assure you interim orders are Indeed gender biased to the extreme. From my experience interim orders are based on information that doesn't need to be verified.

"Now the only thing that I’m unclear about in this subject at this time, is does child care fall into child support or special expense. My lawyer says special expense, but her lawyer says child support. I like her lawyer's answer better on this subject." I would like to hear a legal argument of your question because it seems interpretation of the law is as varied as the number of lawyers.

 

[Jeff]

Hi everyone and welcome to the divorce forums,

Regarding child care expenses, a lot of special or extraordinary expenses (also known as add ons) are in a fairly grey area of the law. However, child clear is specifically listed as an add on expense - so long as the child care expenses are incurred as a result of employment, illness, disability, or education for employment.

 

[Jethrone]

Shared Travel Expenses

Shared Travel Expenses

These special expenses are a pain sometimes. My divorce is complete but it seems there are continuous headaches (for each of us) over money. Because my kids are several thousand km's away, I had to first get an interim order for her to put the kids unaccompanied on the plane to exercise access. With it also came the stipulation that we would share equally in travel expenses, which also carried over to the divorce. Of course, getting her share is now an issue, which leaves me paying the bill and fighting to get her share. The initial order was clear:I pay to bring them here and she pays to bring them back, but simply put in the divorce to 'share expenses'. I eventually get the money but I can't afford the $2500 up front every time...now leaving me to possibly go back to vary the divorce order. I was hopeful that the arguing would stop after the divorce but I guess this is what happens when you are not quite detailed enough. My advice...spend the time to detail everything to try and reduce future arguments for both sides!

Brand New Life: Just FYI, my child care cost-sharing was under special expenses...after the adjustment for her tax credits! This was a pain for the both of us, but we eventuall agreed on everything. She did not quite understand the issue of the yearly assesment of her costs and what tax year info to use. We used calendar year with a look the taxes by July and any changes required to be back-dated to Jan. Something else to work out between both of you.

Cheers.