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Child Support - A Child's Right, A
Parent's Duty
Every parent has a legal responsibility to provide adequate
support until their child reaches the age of emancipation.
Divorce does not end this legal obligation. While a
marriage has been dissolved, the child remains entitled to
financial support. Child support laws were designed to
address the financial aspect of raising a child and to fairly
distribute the
financial responsibility among the parents. Support payments
also ensure that a child can live in a similar economic
circumstance as that which existed prior to the divorce.
If you are one of the estimated 40 million parents nationwide
involved a child support matter, this article will help
explain your legal rights.
Child Support Defined
Child support can be defined as the payment by one parent
(usually the "non-custodial parent") to the other
parent to support their common child. Essentially, one parent
pays the other parent, who in turn, pays the child's day to
day expenses. In New York, parents, are financially
obligated until
the child reaches emancipation at the age of 21; in New Jersey
parents are responsible until the child reaches 18 (with
certain exceptions). This financial obligation holds
true regardless of whether the child's parents live apart,
never lived together, or were never married. A Child
Support Order is always part of the divorce decree or
paternity judgment and is issued by the court to specify the
payment amount and schedule.
In addition to the standard payment set by the court, support
may also include childcare costs, uninsured medical and
education expenses, and other costs such as private schooling,
special needs of gifted or disabled children, and visitation
transportation expenses. Most states, including
New Jersey and New York, have established formulas to
calculate the amount of the support payment. Support is
not tax-deductible, and the courts generally make their
support determination based on income after taxes. A
number of factors are used to determine the payment amount:
- The needs of the child,
- The circumstances of both
parents and their standard of living,
- Income and assets of each
parent,
- Liabilities and debt of each
parent,
- Earning potential of each
parent,
- Age and health of the child,
- Child's education, including
college, and
- Other factors that the court
feels are relevant.
The amount of child support
does not have to be decided by a court. A pretrial
agreement can be developed in lieu of using the state's
guidelines, and the court will often award the payment based
on this agreement. Working with their attorneys, parents
identify the requirements of their child and
help develop an agreement that is truly "in the best
interests of their child".
Child Support Enforced
Unfortunately, many parents who have been awarded support on
behalf of their child do not receive it. Some parents
who are required to pay, cannot. Others ignore or deny legally
enforceable payments for various reasons - so called
"Deadbeat" parents or those who believe they can
stop payments because visitation of their child has been
restricted by the custodial parent. Finally, a question
of paternity may be used by an alleged father to deny payment.
Paternity becomes an issue in child support cases when the
alleged father claims that the child is not his. In
these cases, genetic or DNA tests can be ordered by the court
to establish paternity. Once paternity is proven, the
father may owe support payments retroactive to the date when
the child was born. Last year, approximately 1.6 million
fathers' paternity was established and acknowledged.
Nearly 700,000 paternities were voluntarily acknowledged by
the father in a hospital at the time of birth.
The spouse who is deprived of court ordered support payments
can seek legal remedy. Congress established the federal
Child Support Enforcement Program (CSE) to offer services that
include locating the non-custodial parent, establishing
paternity, establishing support orders and collecting support
payments. Last year the CSE's child support caseload was
over 17 million. Technological advances, cooperative
interstate laws and the New Hire Registry have provided the
CSE with a high-success rate in collecting payments (including
retroactive amounts), garnished wages and other sanctions.
It is the children who suffer most when child support
obligations are not met or payments are inadequate.
Federal and state laws were developed to ensure that parents
do not shirk their responsibility towards their children, and
that the parent with physical custody of the child is able to
adequately provide for their child's needs.
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