A child support question, wondering my options. (not legal advice)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have 2 kids with my first wife.

One of them lives with me, in Pennsylvania, and the other lives with her in California.

I have been paying child support from the moment I moved out, and have never missed a payment. I want to make that clear. I am the furthest thing from a deadbeat dad.

When I left, we agreed to a certain amount of child support.

2 years ago, when my son chose to move in with me in PA, we agreed to reduce that amount by 25% (I didn’t go half, as I figured she was more likely to let him come here without a fight if I wasn’t hitting her in her purse).

I also stated at the time that I didn’t want any support from her. I have stood by that statement, and have not asked her for a dime for glasses, clothes, school expenses, etc.

I am now in the process of looking into reducing the child support again.

She has since remarried, and in fact has another kid with her husband (nice guy, very happy for them both).

AS I have one kid, and she has one kid, I thought it would be fair if we just dropped it and called it even.

I am aware that California and Pennsylvania both have formula’s that are used in these situations, and am looking into what sort of numbers either would come up with.

So my question is 2 part:

1- What are the odds of getting a court to “call it even” with each of us having one of the kids, and nobody owing anybody support?

2- Will the courts, if it goes to that, go by the formulary, even if we have both pre-agreed on a number that is not generated by their formula?

Thanks in advance (I know, you are not my lawyer, I am not your client, etc. etc.) legal eagle Dopers!

2

What you are asking for seems to be legal advice exactly.

3

I don’t have a good answer but, in the end, it’s always up to the judge. If you make more than her, you may still end up paying, but it might be less.

Assuming she has an income somewhere close to yours, “calling it even” is a logical request. I would plug your incomes in to the California and Pennsylvania formulas and see what you get.

4

You may not be aware, some states count the income of the new spouse towards the calculation. Depending on income levels, like if yours was low and his was high, you would be getting money.

California has the dis-o-master where you can enter in numbers and get what is due in California. I have no idea what PA does/uses.

oh yeah, for google, call it the “california child support calculator” http://www.childsup.ca.gov/Resources/CalculateChildSupport/tabid/114/Default.aspx

Good Luck

5

More like legal opinion, I suppose. You are correct.

Mods, I should probably be moved to IMHO…

6

Moved to IMHO from General Questions.

samclem Moderator, GQ

7

You would go by whatever state has the controlling order. If you were divorced in PA, the calculations PA uses would trump what CA uses.

Whether it would be -0- support depends on your income, her income, and (possibly) the standard of living in both places.

8

At a minimum, it is worth pursuing on your part. All you want is what is “Fair”. If “fair” is having your child support payment reduced in accordance with what the minimum amount the law says you are required to pay…then that it is fair. Contact an attorney.

9

I don’t know how accurate their calculators are, but at this websiteyou can select your state and plug in your information and it will give you an estimate of what you should pay.

10

A close friend of mine and her husband share custody 50/50. No one pays anyone child support. I would think with each of you supporting 50% of the kids, there would be no need for child support either.

11

For non-legal advice, I do think you (and your wife) have a responsibility to make sure that both kids are living at a level commiserate with both of your incomes. If you each have one kid, and one of you makes 30K a year and the other makes 100K a year, the person making 100K a year ought to pay something to the person making 30K a year–things like piano lessons and playing in school sports and owning more than one pair of shoes at a time and living in a safe neighborhood shouldn’t be something that only the kid with the more affluent parent gets.

Basically, the kids ought to be with the parent that they are best suited to be with (it sounds like you two worked this out) and the money ought to flow in the direction that would balance out their lifestyles a bit so that one parent isn’t basically bribing the kids to stay with him or her.

Spouse’s income is tricky. On one hand, it obviously contributes to the household, but on the other hand I’ve known more than one step parent who refused to pay for groceries if the kids were going to eat them–in those cases, parent and step parent kept separate accounts and parent paid all kid-related bills. But other stepparents are not at all like this.

12

In my experience (and only my experience, understand) I agreed to an amount that was less than what would have been owed me. My lawyer drew up the papers and sent it to the judge and we had no problems.

I got the impression that if I had said “I want to be paid in pennies and gumdrops and good wishes” that as long as no one is creating a hardship on the child and we didn’t need anyone to settle a dispute for us, the judge just signed off. This obviously may not be the case in your area.

13

Love this. Commensurate wouldn’t have been nearly as funny.