A key article here is "Rebuttal Land"
www.legal-aid.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Child-Support-Guidelines.pdfChild support is important: it's what can get you hauled away and thrown in jail. There's no other provision in the US (no debtor's prisons) like it. So be careful. It's screwed me already.
On paper, I make almost twice more than my ex.
So right away, there's the question of imputable income.
Then, there's the rich parents scenario. My ex's parents are also rich. They have given us an average of $60,000 a year for the past fourteen years. I know they've given my ex at least $15,000 since the date of separation. I know she has investments that she omitted from her Preliminary Declarations Income and Expenses (FL-150) form.
I've filed a Motion to Set Aside the support order that is in the process of making me bankrupt (I'll be completely out of money within 8 weeks), while my ex continues to work part-time nine months after separation. She has touted her "frugality" with the judge while I'm being set up as an out-of-control spender because I've bought furniture, an iMac for my son who hates me, etc.
The gamesmanship with child support has everything to do with that famously insanely complicated formula that California uses. It's a "highly regulated" area of law; but in the end, it's as mushy and nightmarish as everything else having to do with Family Law in California. The Courts MUST use that formula, if only to show what support SHOULD be. But in any event, there is HUGE discretion for judges as to WHAT goes into that formula. Are gifts from parents to be included? IRMO Williamson and Alter say different things here. What about imputable income? How old are the kids? Is it only the obliger who can have income imputed? It certainly seems like that, but then the law says that both parents should support the children according to their abilities and stations in life.
It seems - scratch that, it doesn't seem, there IS a bias in California Family Law against imputing income to a "custodial" parent, i.e., Mom. There's a recent case in California (can't find the reference now) where the judge ruled that imputing income to a custodial parent was NEVER in a child's best interest. That same judge then added a "Note" to the finding a little later, leaving the door open to a "non-custodial" parent's possible argument that the benefit to kids of imputing income to Mom would be that they would get to spend more time with Dad. But you have to make that specific argument. Which is what I'm trying.
So don't believe anything you hear about child support (or especially spousal support) being mechanical and cut-and-dried. Yes, it is mechanical because there's a formula; but there's considerable discretion in (a) determining WHAT gets included into that formula, and (b) determining any departure from that formula's results based on specific circumstances. Any departure, or any input into that formula, must be couched in terms of "best interests of the children" for it to have any hope of traction with the Court.
It's hard to know what will have traction here, because we've all heard stories of Dads going bankrupt, living out of cars, etc. while struggling to keep with his support payments. I'm trying to argue that a "pendente lite" "temporary" support order while our case works its way through the sausage grinder should not result in the kids suffering from either of their parents suffering serious economic harm.
The basic advice is, you've got to ask, you've got to try to get any relief available from the Courts. I don't know if the relief I'm asking for will work. According to my calculations (using Ed Sherman's ex-company's court-approved software), if my ex has full-time income imputed, and you include a potential 2% rate of return on under-utilized investments she's hidden, and you include the average gifts the marriage has received from her parents over its duration, she would be the obligor to me for both child support and spousal support. You might be in the same boat. I don't think it's going to work for me. But what guarantees it won't work is no asking. The court will never tell you what you should do, what relief is available. The judge is not allowed to. So you've got to ask. You've got to try.
Good luck, and keep fighting!
