HOW DOES THE COURT DETERMINE MY MONTHLY NET RESOURCES?

In my last post, I talked about how much child support a parent would be required to pay if that parent was not awarded primary custody of his or her child(ren).  As previously discussed, child support is based upon a percentage of a parent’s net monthly resources.  Section 154.125 of the Texas Family Code provides that a parent who does not have primary possession of the child(ren) and whose net monthly resources are $7,500.00 or less shall pay…

• 20% of his/her net income per month for one child,
• 25% of his/her net income for two children,
• 30% of his/her net income for three children,
• 35% of his/her net income for four children, and
• 40% of his/her net income for five children or more.

For more specific information on the amount of child support a parent may be required to pay, please refer to my previous post.

Once it is explained to a parent that child support will be a percentage of his/her net monthly resources, the next question that I am asked is what is included in calculating net monthly resources.  A parent’s net resources are calculated by first determining that parent’s average monthly resources.

Section 154.062 of the Texas Family Code states that resources for the purposes of determining child support shall include:

• social security taxes;
• Federal income tax based on the tax rate for a single person claiming one personal exemption and the standard deduction;
• state income tax;
• union dues;
• cost of the children's health insurance, and
• if the obligor does not pay social security taxes, nondiscretionary retirement plan contributions.

Below is a very simple example for demonstrative purposes only:

If a parent is a full time employee earning $20.00 per hour, that parent will gross $800.00 per week (assuming that there is no overtime).  If you multiply this number by 52, which is the number of weeks in a year, then that parent will gross $41,600.00 per year.  If you then divide this number by 12, which is the number of months in a year, this parent’s average gross monthly income would be $3,466.67. 

For child support purposes, a parent with a gross monthly income of $3,466.67 per month would have $195.87 per month subtracted from this gross amount for social security taxes and $361.88 per month subtracted for federal income taxes, giving the parent a net monthly income of $2,908.92 per month.  If the parent were also to pay for or provide health insurance for the child(ren) at a cost of $200.00 per month, this amount would be subtracted from $2,908.92 leaving the parent with a net income for child support purposes of $2,708.92 per month. 

If the parent were paying child support for three children, that parent would be required to pay 30% of this net income or $827.68 per month.  If the parent were paying child support for two children, that parent would be required to pay 25% of this income or $689.73 per month.  If the parent were paying child support for one child, that parent would be required to pay $20% of this income or $551.78 per month.  Note that even though the cost of the health insurance was subtracted out to determine net income, health insurance still has to be paid on top of or in addition to child support.

For more information, please visit our website at http://www.meganrachel.com or call our office at 972-424-6069.  Also, follow us on Facebook and on Twitter.