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Overview
of Child Support Matters
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An unfortunate fact of economic life is that a
family cannot live as cheaply divided as it can together. Thus, after a
divorce, the living standard of the entire family is often lowered and
the court often finds itself in the unenviable position of having to
divide a scarcity of resources. Then too, there is the problem of
changing the child support order to meet changing needs of children and
enforcing court orders against fathers and mothers who either refuse to
make court ordered child support payments or who cannot do so due to
circumstances beyond their control. These problems, when added to the
issue of custody, visitation and the division of property in a divorce,
keep the family law courts of the country packed to capacity.
Both parents have a legal duty to support their
child according to their ability to do so. All states have child support guidelines in effect, which provide a formula for
calculating child support based on a proportion of each parent's gross
income. These guidelines are applied unless a party can show that
application of the guidelines would be unjust and inappropriate in a
particular case. This section discusses the issue of child support when
viewed in the context of a divorce or paternity action. Just as courts
must often make the crucial decision as to child custody and visitation,
so too must it often determine how much child support the non-custodial
parent will be ordered to pay. This section will describe the
considerations that a court will take into account when deciding the
issue of child support, whether in a divorce or a paternity case. It will also describe the methods by which child support orders are
enforced by courts and how to modify an
order for support. The Child Support Calculator can be used to calculate
your child support obligation.
Establishing Child Support Payments
During a marriage or committed relationship, such
issues are rarely a concern for the court. But when parents divorce or
cease to live together with their children as a family, the courts are
usually required to establish by decree the amount of child support a
non-custodial parent must pay. Like the issue of custody, this can be
reached by agreement or by fighting it out in front of a judge. Child support payments, like alimony, may be incorporated into the
divorce judgment or may be provided for in a marital separation
agreement. You can avoid making child support a contested issue, and the
legal expense of litigating this issue before a Master or a Judge by
both parents agreeing to the appropriate amount of child support and
making this agreement part of a marital separation agreement.
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