If there’s one thing I’ve found, is that child support is one of the most divisive and debated aspects of a divorce. Debating custody can be a war in its own right, but support can be a tricky for people with inconsistent income. Luckily he Arizona Family Courts provide a resource for calculating Arizona child support to help people better understand what is required of them. With that resource anyone can look at their potential child support requirement based on many different scenarios and custody situations.
Typically, child support is decided based upon the gross income of both parents. That means the court will look at each party’s wages, salary and many other factors to make their determinations as to how much each would owe. But, there are items that fall outside the traditional norms of employment compensation. Each one is treated a bit differently and many times people will overlook them when approaching their child support obligations. If these oversights are left to be discovered by an ex or his or her representation, it can make things much more difficult for someone.
Overtime
When you work overtime and you have child support obligations, you should have the option to do so without increasing your obligation. But, if you’d historically been an overachiever at work and worked a lot of overtime in the past, the court might choose to include the expected value of your overtime work in the child support award. There is no guarantee that the court would approach the situation this way, but it’s important to understand the court’s options. Be clear and direct with the court as to your work situation. If you plan to work considerable amounts of overtime, disclose your plans. If the court does decide to include the overtime pay, at least your child will have more support.
Commission
People that work on commission may have large sections of the year without any consistent income. You’d think that this would dramatically impact child support obligations. However, when confronted with an individual that works based off of commission, courts will look to historical income for the last year and the expected income in the years upcoming. In those situations, the child support award could be drastically beyond what the individual would be able to pay. Every salesperson has a slump. Quick action to modify would be very important in that sort of situation. Commission based workers are often hit with back child support because they allow the expectation of a sale outweigh the reality of their financial situation.
Shift Differentials
In the healthcare field, people may work a shift differential. This is when a person takes an undesirable shift and gets compensated more than they normally would for a more desirable shift. Think about those people that work the late shift in the hospital. Administrators need to get them in somehow. The extra compensation is considered to be a part of the individual’s gross compensation and is taxed like any other income. But, when it comes to child support, things can get tricky. It will come down to how often the individual chooses to work those hours. If it seems like the individual consistently works those hours the income may be included in the child support calculation. Of course, the court can’t make someone work undesirable work hours, but it might expect the individual to do so if they have an established tradition of doing so.
Regardless of the financial situation you find yourself in, accurate child support obligation can be difficult to establish. The order may take time to work out and stay in place and work for awhile. But circumstances change and so should child support. It’s imperative to seek modification if the financial stress begins to become too much. When a person has odd employment the importance of financial records increases dramatically. Clear and accurate accounting of one’s finances not only puts the court at ease, but it can help resolve disputes much more quickly. The court respects when people know their limitations, but the court resents those that hide them.