HOW IS BASIC CHILD SUPPORT DETERMINED IN CONNECTICUT?

People in Connecticut have different monthly expenses. These expenses can include a mortgage or rent, utility bills, groceries, insurance, gasoline, car payments and many other expenses. These expenses usually increase when people have children as they will be buying more food, paying more for health insurance, using more utilities, more gasoline as they drive their children to various activities, they will buy more clothes and be paying for more activities and school expenses.

That is part of being a parent though and they need to provide for these various expenses. This is true whether the parents are married or not. When they are divorced though it can be more difficult to ensure both parents are equally contributing to the expenses especially when one parent has the children more often than the other. So, as part of divorces there is usually a child support order requiring one parent to pay the other money each month to ensure both parents are contributing financially.

The amount that parents pay is determined by the child support guidelines. The first step in determining child support is determining the gross weekly income for both parents. Then a number of expenses, often times deducted from paychecks, such as taxes, health insurance premiums, union dues and other expenses are deducted from the gross income to determine the net weekly income.

Next people use the child support chart to determine the basic child support obligation. On the chart people find the block corresponding to their net income and the block will indicate the child support obligation. There can be an additional step for some parents though. If the box associated with the net income is not shaded, the parents combine their net incomes find the appropriate box and then each parent pays a percentage of that amount based on the total percentage of the income their earn.

There are many parents going through divorces in Connecticut. One of the issues that needs to resolved is child support. This is determined using the guidelines, but there are situations when people can deviate from the guidelines depending on the circumstances. Experienced attorneys understand the child support laws and consulting with one could be beneficial.