Overview

Child support is calculated from a worksheet based on the incomes and expenses of the parties.

The Worksheets

The courts have developed worksheets to calculate child support based on the incomes and child-related expenses of the parents. The philosophy behind it is to calculate the financial support a child would have received if the parents had stayed married. If the child(ren) spend the night with one parent more than two-thirds of the time, use worksheet A for primary custody. Otherwise, you should use worksheet B for shared custody.

Exceptions

The courts start from a heavy presumption that child support should be awarded based on the calculations in the child support worksheets. However, you can ask for a deviation if there are special circumstances. This is typically used when a child suffers from an expensive disability and needs additional financial support. Additionally, sometimes courts will award child support based on the child's actual needs, rather than the worksheet, if one parent doesn't cooperate in providing financial disclosures, in order to complete the worksheet.

Gross Income

The child support worksheets use a parent's gross income. This means total income before taxes or any deductions. Additionally, gross income can include more than just a parent's cash payments from an employer. It includes investment income, bonuses, or other perks like a company car.

Child-Related Expenses

It's important to note that only specific child-related expenses are included in the worksheets for health insurance, work-related daycare, and what's called extraordinary expenses. Other expenses like food and clothes are considered to be what the child support is for and are not included in the worksheet.

If a child is on a health insurance plan with the parents, you can take the total cost of the plan divided by the total number of people on it to determine the per-person cost of your health insurance. Then, put down that amount for each child. Extraordinary expenses is defined by caselaw as something closer to unique or unusual expenses. For example, private school is a common extraordinary expense, even though it is not that extraordinary.

Reasonableness

In order to get a credit for an expense, the expense must be reasonable. Generally, any expense that was already routine during the relationship will be considered reasonable. Even expensive luxuries like private piano classes can be a reasonable expense if the child is a prodigy and it was merely a continuation of classes the child was already taking. The other parent doesn't have to agree with the expense for it to be reasonable. The expense just can't be something outrageous.