How Is Your Child Support Amount Calculated?

Sydney Mitchell:

Hi. My name is Sydney Mitchell.

Matthew Brickman:

Hi, I’m Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This! Podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution.Sydney Mitchell:
Well, welcome everybody to mediate this Matthew, you looking forward to this episode. I am, I am. It’s going to be really good. What is the maximum percentage of child support that can be ordered through the court? Does it vary state to state or is it nationwide?

Matthew Brickman:
Okay, so there’s not a percentage. It’s not like you make a hundred thousand dollars and they’re entitled to no more than 20% of your pay. It’s not like that. It is a statutory guideline.

Sydney Mitchell:
You mentioned something about a child, like a child support calculator.

Matthew Brickman:
Yeah. Yeah. So, so there’s a number of different programs, um, that are out there that you can bond that, that, that the professionals have. Um, I use one, um, and I’ve used, I’ve used it. Number was the first one I ever used was called fin plan or financial planner. Uh, there’s another one out there called DPA. Um, and the one that I use is called family law software and we actually rent these. Uh, we actually, you know, we don’t know the programs, we rent them. So I think I spend $60 a month to run this program and the program, um, takes into account all the different variables. So, you know, we, we talk about all the different things, the different variables of how to run a calculation. So, so for example, if I’m going to run a child support calculation, the very first thing that we have to deal with is the timesharing.

Matthew Brickman:
The timesharing is one of the biggest factors, timesharing and income is your, is your, are your two biggest factors to determine a child support? So the very first thing in the program that I’m going to do is we’re going to plug in what the timesharing is. That’s why we can’t do any of the numbers until we do the, um, we actually use what they call the, the acronym, peace P E a C E. That sounds good as a, as a mediator right piece. But what it stands for is P you start with P, which is parenting, and then you go to E which is equitable distribution that would be doing just like we had talked about, like with the business and the assets, and right, then you go to alimony and then you go to child support and then you go to everything else. Now, the only thing though, with alimony is alimony is going to throw off child support. Um, so, um, so sometimes we come back to it and we just read it, but we always start with pay because we can’t do the financials without the P also look, you know what, sometimes when we talk about a house, well, it depends on the timesharing. It depends on what we’re gonna do with

Sydney Mitchell:
Living there primarily, right.

Matthew Brickman:
You know, who wants the house? Well, he, so, you know, sometimes we’ll jump issues, but we, but in order to figure out child support, we have to have the timesharing first. So the first thing we do is we look at the timeshare and we put in the overnights for both parents. And we put in the tax exemption, like who’s claiming the child, his mom claimed the child, dad playing with the child. Are they alternating? And then the next thing we do is we then look at their gross income, whether that is weekly, or actually we actually, I can run it hourly, weekly, biweekly, semimonthly monthly, or even annually. And so we put in their gross income. The reason why we do the gross income is because the, the program will then take out the taxes. So I can tell it, I need to run this program for the state of Florida, because that’s where I am.

Matthew Brickman:
Right. But what I can do with this program is I can run this program. Like for example, I had a, I had a client who dad lived in New York, mom lived in Florida. So we had done this long distance parenting plan. Right. But when it came to running the child support, I can’t just run mom and dad’s income for Florida because I’m in Florida or the child’s even in Florida because dad has state and federal taxes. Mom just has federal taxes. So in order to run the child support, I’ve got to go in and put what state do the parents live in. So I go in and I put in their gross income, and then I pick which state they’re living in.

Sydney Mitchell:
And the program has all of these in

Matthew Brickman:
The program. So some years have I’ve been used this program for years, some years, I may have eight to 10 updates throughout the year, depending on what Congress is doing with taxes. You know, I mean, every time a law changes, we get an update with the program. So we all know

Sydney Mitchell:
That makes sense. Yeah. I guess you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t have guessed that, but it totally makes sense.

Matthew Brickman:
Yeah. So we always have the updated tax codes. We all like, for example, um, president Trump changed the child tax exemption. There used to be three different exemptions. He changed it to one and increased it. Well, when that happened, we got an update with the program and it now knows what is the exemption per child. The other thing too, that the program knows is it knows what the tax rate is on each individual based on their income. So for example, if you make a hundred thousand dollars a year, your tax rate is going to be much higher than somebody who makes $20,000 a year. Well, the program knows that without the program, you would have to sit down with the IRS tax guide

Sydney Mitchell:
And,

Matthew Brickman:
And a calculator. I mean, you’re doing a lot of math in steel. You’re probably not going to get accurate because, um, because then what we do after we look at your wages, then we’ve been, we have to figure out what is your tax filing status? Are you single joint, separate head of household joint with spouse? Well, that’s going to change all of those codes. It’s going to change all of the debt, all the different exemptions, just a big web of numbers that are all yes. And then depending on the, okay, then we’re not done yet. We have to get into wage like income because that also then comes into play. So like, you may have your income, but you may be getting child support from a previous relationship. You may be getting alimony from a previous relationship. You may have public assistance or bonuses, tips, commissions, overtime, you may be getting disability benefits or workers’ compensation.

Matthew Brickman:
Um, you may have, um, social security benefits, right? Well then we have to figure out based on the law, are those taxable or non-taxable because then it might be tax-free money or it might be money that then goes into the whole tax equation. Right? So once we get through that, then we go to now, what are your allowable deductions? So remember when we talked about like, like the different deductions for like figuring out business expenses, all that, right? So now you have allowable deductions, well, allowable deductions. Now you have to figure out what is mom and dad’s medical insurance costs. And then if they’re covering the children, what are the children’s medical insurance costs? And then you have to figure out if they have dental and vision, as well as their medical and figure out mom and dad’s cost as well as the children’s cost.

Matthew Brickman:
Okay. Then we look at childcare expenses now, childcare expenses. Generally I leave that out of this entire equation because that’s a moving target because you’re, you know, the kids may have daycare, aftercare, and as they get older, then they don’t need it. If it’s in the equation, then you’re going to have to keep coming back and modifying. And I don’t want people to be spending money for that. So we need that out, but then you end up with the base child support, but then you have plus plus plus plus plus on top of those. So like, you know, somebody may have a base child support of just say like $300, but then they’re going to split the daycare aftercare on top of that. And then they’re going to split mutually agreed upon extracurricular activities after that. And they’re going to split on covered medical, uh, on top of that.

Matthew Brickman:
So you have your base child support. So that’s what we’re running is just the base child support. Um, and then like I told you before, which, you know, then if there’s alimony, then we put in the alimony and that’s just going to throw off the entire calculation of child support because now alimony then increases your income and granted, and it’s no longer taxable or tax deductible, president Trump changed that. Um, but it, but it is income. And so that changes the numbers. Well, so it is not going back to the question. It is not just, okay, what’s the maximum percentage that can be ordered to the court. It just percentages, it’s a statutory calculation. And then you, and then, and then once you go through all of that, if you’re going to try to do this all by hand, you’ve got to go open up Florida statute.

Sydney Mitchell:
Yeah. Which now having talked about it, I seriously could not imagine trying to do all of this by hand.

Matthew Brickman:
And, and, and I’ll tell you, Sydney people try,

Sydney Mitchell:
I was going to ask, do people, or does everybody have this

Matthew Brickman:
Try? They, they, they find like a calculator online and look, no nobody is going to put an, a calculator online for free because they want you to become, look, if that was true, none of the practitioners, none of the attorneys, nobody would be paying for these things. Why would we? Right? But there is nothing online that’s going to take in all the variables, because here’s a, I’ll give you two, two, two other variables. So in Florida and chapter 61, they’ve got a chart that shows the combined monthly net income. And then it shows, is there one child to child three, four, five, six children, right? And the income goes all the way from, um, $800 a month combined net income, which even if you’re imputed, you’re less than that. But then it goes all the way to $10,000. But then after $10,000, you’ve got to do a whole nother calculation that says for combined monthly net income, greater than the amount in the guidelines schedule, the obligation in the amount is the amount, um, of support provided by the guidelines plus the following percentage.

Matthew Brickman:
So then you get to percentages of one child, two children, three, four, five, six children. So not only do you have to figure out the first step, then you have to do percentages. Uh, yeah, it’s, it’s a mess, which is why I can actually run a child support guidelines, percentage of I, okay, what’s your time sharing? What’s your income? Are there any deductions? And then I could run your number at about 30 seconds. Um, now the other two factors that go into this is for government police, fire rescue government, there might be mandatory union and mandatory retirement where you don’t get an option. You’re you, you work for us. You’re you’re, this is an automatic deduction. And so those do get put into the child support calculation as well. Um, and so, you know, that’s another cost. The other thing too, is the program knows what the tax deduction is for a child.

Matthew Brickman:
So let’s say for example, it’s $2,000, right? And let’s say that Sydney, your going to get the deduction. Well, what the program is going to do is it is going to know that based your income, here’s your taxes. But at the end of the year, if you claim the child, you’re going to get this amount of money back. So what it does is it amateur rises that month, that, that amount of money say that $2,000 over 12 months in the program, adds it to your income, lowers your taxes, which gives you a better net number. And then what the program does is let’s say, for example, that you and I are alternating the tax exemption, right? One year you get it one year, I get it. Well, if one year you get the $2,000 tax exemption, but the next year you don’t and I get it.

Matthew Brickman:
Well, that’s going to throw off our child support number year to year, right? So when the program does, is it says, well, in even numbered years, when Sidney claims the child, here’s what the child support would be an odd number of years when Matthew claims the child, here’s what it would be. So, you know what, here’s the average, and this is the actual child support number. So they don’t have to do that year to year. That’s why I spend $60 a month. So just give me a proof, run a number because it’s not a percentage, right? Um, it, it, it is a, it is a statutory calculation. Now here’s where it gets a little tricky. Other than all of this, if the parties don’t like the child support number, which rarely do parties go nice. I’m signing up for that, unless it’s zero, right? Um, the parties, um, only in mediation can negotiate that number only in a mediation agreement outside of the mediation agreement, the court’s hands are tied 5%.

Matthew Brickman:
And it says at the bottom of child support guidelines, percentage worksheet that the court can deviate 5% under the statute, either up or down, but then you have to file a whole nother form. And it’s still up to judicial discretion, but the parties can negotiate. So yours truly, actually, uh, when I, when I got divorced, agreed to pay above child support guidelines, I had never been divorced. I didn’t know how divorce worked. All I knew is I wanted my kids to be taken care of. And I would shocked that my child support for two children was $500 a month. So I voluntarily agreed to pay above guys.

Matthew Brickman:
Now we will, When my ex and I went in front of the judge, the judge looked at me and he looked at the guidelines and he looked at our agreement. He said, Mr. Berkman, do you understand that you’re paying above guidelines because it’s still up to the court, whether they’re going to agree to it or not, but he needed to make sure that I understood what I was doing. And I said, yes, your honor. I just want to make sure that my kids are taken care of. And he looked at my ex, who was. She wanted even more than that, like more than, and, and, and Sydney, and I agreed to double it. It was 500. I agreed to it. And I agreed with Allison and she wanted even more. And so he says to her, he says, man, do you understand that you’re getting more? And she was very pushy.

Matthew Brickman:
Yes, just very snide and because she wanted more. And he was okay, as long as you guys understand fine. And so, you know, but it was still ran off of a baseline child support, still had to run child support. What is the basis? The baseline was for us was $500. And so it is a statutory calculation. Um, and, um, and I believe I could be wrong. Now I’ve done. I’ve done mediations in, in all over the U S um, and, and out of, and, and even out of country, um, I have not run into, does it mean it doesn’t exist? So again, this is, this is informational. This is not legal advice. I have not run into a state where it is a percentage of an income. I’ve never run into that. Not to mention the company that I rent my program from when you purchase it and load it in, it says, what state do you practice in the majority of the time?

Matthew Brickman:
So it loads in your state’s information. I, like I said, I can go through and pick different States to run, guess what all 50 States are present. So I assume that the, like, why would, why would a company be selling the program that you pick, which state you practice in? And then you run this calculation, if it’s a percentage. Right, right. Just as it make sense, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. But at least in my experience running the programs that I’ve ran and I’ve ran three of them, um, I’ve, I’ve ran the top three of them, which again, fam plan DPA and family law software. And, you know, it’s not a percentage, it’s just a statutory calculation.

Sydney Mitchell:
Right. That’s so, so insightful. I’m really glad that we received this question because I think it presented five, 500 other questions, you know, that somebody might, you know, want to ask you. So

Matthew Brickman:
Yeah. Yeah. Lots of variables. I mean, thing is just so cut and dry. Um, you know, people say to me all the time, Matthew, how in the world do you store all that information in your

Sydney Mitchell:
Well, you’ve been doing it for so long.

Matthew Brickman:
Yeah. I mean, I guess, you know, is it, you know, you do it over and over day in, day out, and I’ll tell you Sydney constantly learning. Right. Because, you know, with all these variables, the laws are changing, things are changing, right. So it’s all about go get the information because you know, people’s lives, hang in the balance.

Sydney Mitchell:
If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.