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Need help regarding support court and deductions

Firsttimestep09's picture

DH has a support court date friday and needs to fill out the paperwork. This is the first time hes gone back to support court. One of the things The paperwork is asking for is HIS monthly expenses. We put the mortgage, taxes, basic household bills(electric,tv,water) pet care. The basic stuff. My question is can someone tell me is there other things one might not thing of that we could put down?

 

STaround's picture

CS is just a percent of income, depending on number of kids, etc.

I would add food, medical care and car payments.   Oh what the heck if  he is including pet care, he should include clothes, eating out, travel.

hereiam's picture

Food, insurance, clothing, medical.

They ask for monthly expenses, but in my experience it really has no bearing on CS. They don't really care what his expenses are, just how much money he makes. Whether he can pay his bills after CS is not their concern, I don't why they even ask.

tog redux's picture

DH had to do it too when BM took him back.  They gave us a check list for all of those things, plus an other. 

Don't forget gas for cars, car payments and insurance, health care, pet care should include an estimate of vet visits too, hair cuts, etc.

I don't know why they asked for it from DH because in the end, they just did the usual formula for CS. 

Jcksjj's picture

I have to put this on my paperwork (as CP) but idk why either. The only thing they actually take into account is health insurance and sometimes daycare expenses. On his end the only deductions he will get is if he has other kids and if he already pays for their health insurance. 

Firsttimestep09's picture

and DH has kids every other weekend Friday after school till sunday evening and two "dinner" visits during the week (about 4 hours each evening)

Firsttimestep09's picture

He is trying to get it lowered as When they signed the divorced 6 years ago they were BOTH making the same amount of money. BM now makes 30 thousand more a year than DH

Rags's picture

All household living expenses (Mortgage/Rent, food, utilities, cleaning supplies, etc....), transportation, insurance, clothing, school related expenses, etc, etc, etc.......  Load them up. If they want you to list expenses, list then all. 

As for getting CS reduced.... that is not likely.  The income shares model (Used by most states) sets CS as a factor of total bio parent income and parenting time.  When the total bio parent combined income goes up... CS goes up. Even if the CP is the one with the significantly higher income.  Different states have slight variations of formulas as well as differences in court governance regarding establishing and managing CS.  So you may not get hammered as hard as my SS's BioDad did any time CS was reviewed.   My wife requested only one CS review in the 16+ years we lived under the Custody/Visitation/Support order.  His CS obligation increased. Any time he would add another out of wedlock child by his next statutory rape victim he would try to get CS lowered.  It would go up.  DW graduated with her dual major BS when SS was 7 and immediately her income was greater than the BioDads. Hers went up rapidly and only a few years after she graduated her income was 2-3X what the BioDad's was and the balance just kept increasing in my DW's favor.  Still BioDad's CS increased.

Research your State's CS model, play with your State's online CS calculator and get as complete understanding as you can for what the likely outcome of a CS mod will be.

This article may help you in your research. It has links to all of the states CS information.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/guideline-models-by-state.aspx

Good luck.