How is child support calculated?
A. Child support is based on Child Support Guidelines in New Jersey. Generally speaking, it is determined by taking the income of each of the parties, along with a number of other factors, and then using various formulae as established by a committee of the New Jersey Supreme Court. Besides including the income of the parties, the amount of time that each party spends with their children is also a factor so that, in some sense, the more time that a parent spends with the children, the lower his or her child support obligation will be. There are also several other factors that go into the equation, including the requirement to pay child care. The only way to make an accurate determination as to how much the child support obligation will be is to have all the necessary information available, and then utilize the guidelines step-by-step, in order to find the definitive amount.
Every state establishes numerical child support guidelines. Child support is based on a percentage to the non-custodial parent’s income. It is from this percentage that the child support is calculated. The percent of net resources will be 20% for 1 child, 25% for 2 children, 30% for 3 children, 35% for 4 children, and 40% for 5 children. There are caps and other considerations on child support amounts that may affect some individual payors.
Child support in New York is based upon a statute know as the Child Support Standards Act, commonly referred to as the CSSA. The CSSA defines “income” and assesses a percentage of that income as “basic child support” to be paid to the custodial parent by the non-custodial parent. In addition to basic child support, there are mandatory “support add ons”, including the cost of health insurance premiums, unreimubrsed medical expenses, and daycare expenses, and discretionary add ons, including college expenses. The calculation of child support is often contentious. A determination of custody must precede the determination of child support and many parents are surprised to find that joint custody does not necessarily result in an equal sharing of the child support burden, even when the parents equally divide their custodial time. The actual determination of child support based upon the statutory percentages is often treated like a simple calculation. However, the determination of what is or
