(0:00 – 0:17)
Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Michael Mantell with another Family Law Matters with Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel, founder and managing partner of the Primus Family Law Group. Hi Bonnie. Hi Michael, how are you doing today? Doing very, very well Bonnie.

(0:18 – 0:42)
Bonnie, a number of people have been writing to us to ask us the question about child support. Now, in my line of work, when people talk to me about child support, they’re talking about how to emotionally support a child. What coaching steps can they use to support a child emotionally going through the anxiety and the depression and the stress and everything else that kids are going through.

(0:43 – 1:17)
In your line of work as a certified family law specialist, when people talk to you about child support, they’re talking about income. And this can be pretty tricky because if someone is self-employed versus being an employed person getting a W-2, if someone is self-employed, it’s difficult sometimes to really understand how much money can be applied to child support. Can you talk a little bit about that for us please? Sure Michael, as you know, well, as you know, I love math.

(1:18 – 1:39)
So this is an area of family law that I enjoy because it involves numbers. So in California, all your income from any source is available for support. Interest income, dividend income, tips, all of that is available for support.

(1:39 – 2:06)
Now a self-employed person, they file taxes differently than a W-2 employee, right? A W-2 employee gets a W-2 and they file their taxes. A self-employed individual has to do a profit and loss. And that often gives them the ability to pass through certain expenses to their business that may or may not be, it’s correct for taxes, but it may or may not be right for child support.

(2:06 – 2:22)
I’ll give you an example. Restaurants, meals out, all of your telephone expense. Those things have both a component of your personal use like your car, right? It’s a component of personal use, but a component of business use.

(2:22 – 3:38)
And so when you are self-employed where your income also can fluctuate from year to year because of what you do, the court is more likely to do an average. What is your three-year or your five-year average of income? And what things do you take off on your taxes that would not be allowable in family support court? So those are the things that having a specialist and somebody who likes math can help you understand because often what the court’s gonna use as your income is not necessarily what you believe your income is. Is there a percentage that a couple can rely on in terms of how much he has to give, how much she has to give depending on earned income? It ends up working out to a percentage, but it is actually a very detailed formula that strips away your expenses and only allows certain things like property taxes, mortgage interest, whether or not you contribute to your retirement, whether you have union dues, what kinds of specific expenses will be allowed.

(3:39 – 3:58)
And that formula then creates a number. So it’s not like you can say, well, it’s gonna end up being on average 25% of my income because it’s not. Sometimes, unfortunately, depending what your net income is, you may not actually have enough to live on after you pay child support to your ex.

(3:58 – 4:28)
And what about the amount of time the child spends with you versus the other parent? Doesn’t that come into it as well? Absolutely, that comes into it as well. So it’s usually the factors of how much time share you have with your child, what your gross income is, and what those adjustments to income based on the allowable expenses the court will use. Can a parent say, I’m not giving, let’s use an example, a kid’s going off to college.

(4:28 – 4:45)
We have been sharing 50-50 custody, physical visitation, legal issues as well. And now the kid’s going off to college and the kid’s expenses are gonna skyrocket. I’m not responsible for that.

(4:45 – 5:05)
You’re not. A parent can say- The court has no jurisdiction over a child that’s emancipated, that is over 18 and graduated high school. So unless you and your spouse put it in a written agreement, becoming a contract, unfortunately, there’s nothing the court will do.

(5:05 – 5:16)
What about a younger child? One parent can decide not to contribute. That’s what I mean. So a parent can say, I’m not contributing over and above my child support.

(5:17 – 5:36)
But the child support ends at 18 anyway. So it goes to zero and then you have no reason and then there’s no requirement to contribute to college. But what about a child, let’s say, who’s 14 and wants to play sports or do this or go on a trip over the summer and the parent says, no, I paid my support, I’m not paying for that.

(5:37 – 6:02)
The mandatory add-ons to support are out-of-pocket medical expenses. So co-pays, prescriptions, hospital stays not covered, God forbid, child care that is required for the job in the sense that mom or dad can’t watch the child from three to six and has to go into after-school care. That is a mandatory add-on to be shared.

(6:03 – 6:33)
But extracurricular activities are only required to be shared if agreed. So let’s say little Susie has been doing gymnastics for all of her life, which is a very expensive sport and the parties get divorced and one parent says, no, the only person who suffers at that point is the child who either doesn’t get to do it or the parent won’t take them on their days, but it is not a mandatory add-on to child support. Tough, tough time.

(6:33 – 7:16)
If people have questions, they wanna talk to you about this further, how can they reach you? Well, they can reach us directly at 619-574-8000 and they will be scheduled for a free 30-minute phone consultation with me. All the consults are done by me and they can reach us online at www.PrimusFamilyLaw.com. And if people have questions that they’d like us to cover in the next Family Law Matters, they can leave those questions at that phone or online as well. Absolutely, they can even email us at info at PrimusFamilyLaw.com.