For this episode of the Massachusetts Child Support Series, we welcome attorney Sandra Lundy, a family law attorney with the Richardson law firm.
The topic for this episode is the factors that can affect the attribution and amount of child support. Some are fairly well known: the parents’ incomes and how the parenting time is divided are two factors that are used in pretty much all cases.
You can figure out the standard child support amount by inputting these figures into a fillable pdf form provided by the court system. The basic calculation considers the difference in income between the two parents and the approximate amount of time that the child spends with each parent.
There are others, however, that are a little bit more obscure. For example, when there are multiple children, child support goes up. However, it does not go up linearly. For two children, the amount will be 40% higher than for one child. That is up significantly over the previous guidelines where that factor was 25%.
Things can get interesting for the factors that can help come with a different amount than the standard one prescribed by the court forms.
Join us for this episode for a lively discussion of several other factors and how they affect the amount of child support.