Even in these circumstances, your duty to pay child support does not stop automatically. You will need to ask the same court that made your child support order to allow you to stop making payments because of your child's emancipation. Generally, the court calculates the amount of child support based on both parents' income per year and the number of children for whom the parents are responsible.
There's more about that below, too. In applying the formula to come up with a basic child support obligation, the court adds the income of both parents and multiplies it by the appropriate child support percentage based on the number of children.
Your income for purposes of this calculation is your "gross income as was or should have been reported on the most recent federal income tax return. Because you have physical custody most of the time, the court will presume that you are spending your share directly on your child's expenses.
In addition to the basic child support obligation, the court may tack on additional payments to cover childcare costs if the custodial parent is working or going to school and for the child's reasonable health care expenses. The court may also order payment for the child's education. It could use the same formula as above for all of the combined income. Even if you aren't working, you may still have income. The state of New York includes workers' compensation awards, pensions, fellowships, stipends, and annuity payments as income for child support purposes.
If you receive disability, unemployment, social security, veterans, or retirement benefits, then a court will use those benefit amounts to calculate your payments. Public assistance, on the other hand, is not income. Any amount of public assistance you receive from the state is deducted from the combined parental income. If you're voluntarily unemployed or underemployed, the court will likely impute your income.
Imputed income means the court will generally look to your past employment and wage history to determine what you could or should be earning. If you don't have an income history, the court will most likely impute your income at minimum wage.
When the court calculates your basic child support obligation, it can also consider whether your share is unjust or inappropriate. You will need to explain why the amount is too much for you. Perhaps your income has significantly decreased from past years because of illness or market changes. It is possible, although not guaranteed, that the court will reduce your payments based on your particular hardship. Read the Child Support Standards Act for more information. The goal is to give children the same standard of living they would have if their parents were together.
The law states that the basic support award be set at a fixed percentage of parental income, depending on the number of children for whom an order is being requested:.
Child or spousal support actually paid, based on a court-order or written agreement, may also be deducted before calculating the child support order. Under the law, neither party is obligated to contribute to these expenses but parties who chose to settle child support out of court often provide for such expenses in an agreement, which is one of the many benefits to agreeing to child support in an out-of-court agreement.
Speaking of agreements, this brings us to one of the key points of this article. In mediation, most couples do not follow the child support guidelines calculations and instead reach their own agreements based on their individual financial needs and circumstances.
We are often asked by couples in mediation whether it is mandatory to follow the child support guidelines. The short answer is no — with one caveat. When parties reach their own child support agreement out of court, the language of the agreement itself must comply with specific requirements including a breakdown of the calculations of the presumptive child support guidelines in order to be enforceable by a court in the future.
That is why it is important for couples to understand how the guidelines work and to have an experienced family law attorney draft your child support agreement. Mediation gives couples the freedom to come up with their own child support agreements that work best for their unique family situations. As mediators, we know that while the legal guidelines are often a good starting point, realistically speaking, for many families, taking such a formulaic approach does not always result in an amount of child support that is appropriate or feasible.
This is true for a variety of reasons including having a child with special needs or certain tax implications. By the same token, especially with parents who are self-employed or have their own businesses, actual income available for support may be tricky to figure out.
In mediation, we explain the guidelines to parents and let them make their own decisions as to whether or not to apply them to their cases. In mediation, we can be creative in ways that you cannot be in litigation. For example, for some families, it might make sense for the custodial parent to take less support in exchange for a greater share of the marital assets , especially if those assets include the marital residence that may have minimal carrying costs or no mortgage.
In mediation, we will review your needs and priorities and go through options with you. We will then encourage meaningful and productive discussion and help you brainstorm to come up with creative solutions that work based on your individual family circumstances. Divorced parents are required to pay child support in New York until their children reach the age of 21 In New York, divorcing parents are obligated to continue to support their children until the children reach age
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