Michael

Texas Child Support guidelines is a statutory calculation based on the obligors monthly net resources. The guidelines as applied will give you a calculation of what the legislature has told judges that an obligor should pay. For the most part you can do one of four things when you go to court as it applies to guidelines, 1) you can do guideline support 2) below guideline support 3) above guideline support or 4) no child support. Now generally when you do no child support in the past that has been frowned upon by the courts based on a Supreme Court case In Re Stephanie Lee from about 10 years ago and in the first and fourteenth court of appeals in the greater Houston area in the Minix case we have the ability to put agreements into what’s called a mediated settlement agreement, if you use this form and you do not have an objection from the attorney general of Texas the courts will approve no child support orders. Now in Harris County you will find a majority close to majority of the current judges will approve no child support orders, but then if the attorney general objects, then yes you will have some issues there and probably will have to adjust.

What is child support? “a parent has a “natural moral obligation” to provide for the support of his or her offspring.” A court’s child support order can require either or both parents to support a child. There are multiple options for the payment of child support. Child support payments can be ordered through periodic payments, lump sum payments, and annuity purchase, the setting aside a property or any combination of the above. Child support is a general phrase that can describe five different categories of support current child support there is,

• A child support ordered by the court for the support of a child after the entry of an order.
• Temporary child support this is child support ordered by a court in a penny matter for the safety and welfare of the child.
• Retroactive child support these funds are identified by the court as repayment for money spent for the care and support of the child in the past.

Courts can order retroactive child support if the parents have not been previously ordered to pay support and were not a party to suit for which support was ordered. Medical child support this is child support for the payments of medical expenses that can be ordered in any proceeding in which periodic payments of child support are ordered. Any other suit affecting the parent-child relationship in which the court determines that medical support of the child must be established, modified, or clarified. Dental child support this is child support for the payments of dental costs that can be ordered in a suit affecting the parent-child relationship.

How do you determine your net resources for child support? The definition is given to us by the Texas family code looks at your monthly resources and that definition is one 100% of all wages and salaries income and other compensation for personal services includes commissions, overtime pay, tips, and bonuses, interest dividends, and royalty income, self-employment income, net rental income, defined as rent after deducting operating expenses, and mortgage payments but not including non-cash items such as depreciation and all in it all other income actually being received including severance pay, retirement benefits, pensions, trust income, annuity, capital gains, social security benefits other than supplemental security income, united states department of veterans affairs disability benefits other than non-service connected disability, pension, benefits, unemployment benefits, disability, and workers compensation benefits interest income from notes regardless of the source gifts and prizes, spousal maintenance, and alimony.

Types of income so the issue becomes many times when someone is self-employee, they get cash or they expense a lot of the expenses for their business so it’s hard many times to determine what the child support obligation should be. And so what you do is you have to look at bank statements generally and then if you have a ability to look at the businesses accounts their work that they’re doing their form of payment and sometimes you can reconstruct it that way. Documented income this is evidence of income that stipulates a finite amount, tax returns, bank statements, w-2s, 1099s, deemed income, this is income which is not earned but received by certain past allowances of deductions and received subsequently. The courts have determined that assets that are not currently produced in income may be considered deemed income for the purposes of identifying monthly resources. It is prudent for the attorney to include all areas in which an obligor may receive income as permitted by the statute.

Self-employment income the income attributed to self-employment is quite expensive which includes compensation from proprietorships, joint ventures, partnerships, closed corporations, agencies, dba, and independent contracts lessening necessary expenses.

Varying income if the party’s income varies from month to month the courts have applied a range of income or average to identify monthly resources. The court of appeals in one particular case found it abused its discretion in determining monthly income resources by averaging the obligor’s income over time. Then you have hidden income hidden income usually is going to be cash, bitcoin.

Expenses to be deducted in determining monthly net resources so you get certain expenses to determine your monthly net resources and for the w-2 obligor that is the easiest calculation to make. So once you determine the monthly resources of the obligor then that obligor is entitled to certain deductions. These deductions include social security taxes, federal income taxes based on the tax rate for a single person claiming one personal, exemption, and standard deduction state income tax union dues expenses, for the health insurance, or cash medical support of the obligor’s child ordered by the court. And if the obligor does not pay social security taxes, non-discretionary retirement plan contributions this is usually railroad workers sometimes it can be teachers.

Calculation of guideline child support so what you have is you have an attorney general chart, and that chart will give you a percentage based on how many children before the court. The easiest calculation is to take the maximum amount and you do have a maximum amount for guideline child support which is at the time of this video $9,200 per month as your net this amount if you have one child before the court and you were to times (X’s) it by 20 then that comes up to your maximum guideline child support for which you would be subject to. So, if you are making approximately $150,000 a year as your salary through whatever company you work for and then you end up netting $9,200 a month your maximum would be $1,840. So, $9,200 times (X’s) 20 is $1,840 per month. If you have a second child before the court then you go up five percentage points to 25 percent, third child is 30, and so on until you get to 50 and the courts do not allow more than 50 percent of your wages to be withheld. So, while you still may have an obligation to pay, they will not withhold more than 50 percent of your wages. And many times, someone who is on social security or have some form of veteran’s benefits is also receiving a child support payment for the child. About 15 years ago it used to be you did not get credit for your child receiving benefits under your social security, that changed and as it changed then you as a child support obligor who is on social security and is paying child support you really need to go and file for your child’s social security that your child can draw from you, because you’ll get a credit towards your child support obligation. Same thing with veteran’s benefits rebutting the guidelines, or above and below guidelines above guidelines child support for someone who makes over $9,200 a month so what you have as you have as initially discussed at the beginning you have guideline child support, below guideline child support, above guideline child support, and no child support. Usually, no child support is considered offensive, and you will have a hard time getting that approved in most places in Texas. As a practitioner in Harris County, I can tell you that about half of the courts will approve it because, they don’t want to create an obstacle where you have to go to mediation. Once you go to mediation, they have to approve it subject to an attorney general objection, and the attorney generals do not generally well now object as they once did, they usually allow those to be approved. This comes up with someone who’s drawing some form of state aid, so if you’re getting Medicaid, or food stamps then the attorney general has a state interest to obligate one of the parties to pay child support. In the past they pushed that more in the last couple years, but they still push the cash medical for the Medicaid. Someone usually has to pay cash medical and that’s usually around $100 a month, otherwise they’re not as likely to push the child support obligation. So, by agreement you can agree to a couple $200- $300 a month and that generally will be approved by most courts. You have a presumption of minimum wage where a obligor is presumed to be able to make at least the federal minimum wage which comes up to about $230 a month it fluctuates every year a little bit based on the guideline charts as promulgated by the attorney general. So how do you get above or below guideline child support we have to plead for it and there’s certain factors you look at the needs of the child is a topic of much discussion. When the obligor’s net monthly resources exceed the cap of $9,200 monthly. When obligor’s resources exceed the cap, it grants the court discretion to order additional amounts of support above the presumptive amount. Several steps are necessary for the court to compute this task the court must first determine the proven needs of the child once the proven needs of the child have been ascertained the court must then subtract the guideline presumptive amount from the proven needs of the child and finally allocate between both parents the remaining amount. In no event may the court require an obligor to pay more than 100% of the proven needs of the child. However, if the obligor’s monthly net resources are below the cap the court is not required to ascertain the proven needs of the child. The needs of the child is one factor for the court to consider in determining child support. An obligor with monthly net resources below the $9,200 can be required to pay an amount of child support that exceeds the proven needs of the child, however an obligor with the monthly that resources above $9,200 cannot. So many times, you’ll have a family with high income, and you’ll have a child in private school with tutors and that could cause the child support amount to be not enough to cover those academic payments along with the tutoring or the music lessons that may go on. So those would be proven needs of the child and so as those are proven needs of the child then if you have that documented you can usually ask for more. With the obligor being under $9,200 let me tell you it’s hard to get judges to order one to pay above guideline child support. Usually if you have a disability or you have a lack of visitation of one parent then you can get more, so the obligate parent the primary parent who takes care of the child during the week and the obligor parent does not spend any time with the child then that is my easiest route to get above guideline child support, but for the most part the courts are pretty strict with the child support guidelines they stay within them. But I have tried both above guideline child support, and below guideline child support. And then a obligor who makes above the cap and below the cap and as I’ve tried those cases on many times i can tell you based on my experience you need good documented proof if you’re above the cap, and if you’re below the cap then you your best case is a lack of possession access. When you look at the standard possession order it is 42% of the time with the non-primary parent and so if the non-primary parent is exercising that those periods of possession then they’re feeding the child, they’re clothing the child, they’re entertaining the child during that time. If you expand it out to the expanded possession order which is Thursdays when school that’s out and then during the school year, and then on weekends Friday when school lets out to school regimes on Monday on the first third and fifth weekends that’s almost 47 percent of the time that the child is with the non-primary. So that parent who exercises the expanded possession order is necessarily going to be spending quite a lot of money on the child by feeding the child, entertaining the child, so the courts as they apply the guidelines usually will not order much above guidelines.

 Child Support in Texas, legal definition for child support, gross and net resources

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