Family Law, Divorce, Custody and Child Support Attorneys in Denver, Colorado

Primary Factors for Child Support

The primary factors of a child support calculation are:

• Respective gross incomes of the parties
• Number of overnights
• Heath insurance premiums (child’s portion)
• Work related childcare expenses
• Any maintenance obligation a party might have or receive
• Other child support payments made or received

Each of these factors may play an important role in determining a support obligation. It is important to carefully review each one with your lawyer to determine its impact on the calculation.

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What is Gross Income?

Gross income, for the purposes of determining child support is a rather broad term – much broader than other contexts. It is essentially any income you receive from any source, prior to any deductions.

Also, just because a party might not have any present income, i.e. they quit or lost their job, doesn’t mean they get to put a “0″ into their side of the formula. In most circumstances such as this the court will impute income to this parent, based on their earning potential and past income. There are exceptions to this, such as where the parent is a stay at home, primary caregiver for younger kids.

At Johnson Sauer Legal Group, LLC, our attorneys can assist a parent in obtaining an order for the appropriate amount of child support and in making sure the order gets enforced.

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Importance of Overnights

The number of overnights with each parent is a critical factor in the child support calculation. First, if a parent doesn’t meet a threshold of 94 overnights per year, one formula applies – Worksheet “A”. If the both parents have the kids for more than that number of overnights, the formula on a Worksheet “B” is used.

Once you’ve properly identified the Worksheet to be used, if you fall into a Worksheet “B” situation, then the number of overnights continues to have a significant impact on the child support formula.

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