Child support is an emotional and complex subject. However, at first, it does not appear that one. One parent pays child support while the other one receives child support. It’s the same amount each month. You even have a court order that spells all this out for you in detail. What’s to be confused about? Well, quite a bit. There are complexities within child support orders that are not always discussed during a case. Additionally, life’s circumstances come into play which complicates matters.
With that said, child support is a topic that you need to get straight in your life. It creates a headache for families no matter what part of the equation you are filling. If you pay child support you need to know how to get the money from your bank account to your co-parent. As you will see there is one way to pay child support. There are many ways to not pay child support. The last thing you want to do is not get credit for the child support that you have paid.
On the other side of the coin, as a parent receiving child support you need this money to pay bills. On some level, you would prefer not to rely on child support but that’s not the reality of this situation. Life is expensive and raising a child is a part of life. Therefore, your monthly budget depends on receiving child support. Speaking of budgeting, let’s start right there.
Budgeting- helping you each month
A monthly budget is a big part of the monthly process of organizing your finances. Do not overlook how critical it is to keep your money straight each month. To neglect your budget would be like skipping over arithmetic and trying to do algebra. It just won’t make sense. There is too much that you need to keep track of when it comes to your life to not budget. Budgeting does not constrain your spending. Thinking of a budget like a straitjacket for your money is not accurate.
Rather, taking into consideration the needs of your family is where budgeting comes in handy. Your family relies on you having your money under control each month. We all know that feeling when we are a little out of control with our expenses. It may not even be “fun” activities that we are spending our money on. It could be activities associated with everyday life that our children benefit from. However, even too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing.
Having a budget means that you are taking responsibility for your money. Do not underestimate how much you can benefit from having a budget. Taking your monthly expenses and income and then figuring out where you are is all it takes. Typically, it takes a few months to get the hang of budgeting. There are usually some growing pains associated with budgeting. However, when you know how to track your expenses it becomes easier to plan for child support.
The best interests of your children
Another worthwhile tip is that the child support you pay or receive is not intended to benefit you primarily. Rather, child support is intended to benefit your children. They are the recipients of the child support. Even if you grumble (understandably in some cases) about having to pay your ex-spouse child support, remember that the money is not for them. It is intended to help your children. Keep this in mind as you better organize your life, and budget, and take seriously your finances.
As the parent who receives child support, you may grumble (understandably in some cases) that you are not getting “enough” in child support. As we mentioned a moment ago, raising kids is expensive. Each month seemingly has a new bill or cost to account for. All these costs add up over time. However, your co-parent likely has to dig deep to pay child support for your children. Do not assume that he could pay more or that it is easy for him to pay. Rather, the likelihood of him struggling to pay child support is high.
Walk a mile in the other parent’s shoes before castigating him or her as greedy, ungrateful, or anything else. Next, consider once again that the best interests of your children are to be served by the payment of child support. Your job is to focus on your children and do the best that you can for them. No matter your role in the child support process you must have a focus on your children first and foremost. After that, you will have much more patience for your co-parent.
Work, income, and child support
It seems overly simplistic to say but we all need to work. Work is where income comes from. Income is what we use to pay bills, invest, save up, and even have fun from time to time. There are only four things that you can do with money: save it, spend it, invest it, and give it away. Ideally, we are all able to do these four things consistently. The more income we have the more options we have.
For child support, some calculations come into play for most people. If you are the parent who pays child support then a calculation is performed on your net monthly resources. That calculation determines how much child support you will pay each month. Your co-parent receives this child support and uses it however she believes it is best spent on behalf of your child.
With that in mind, you must have a job. Most adults do work in some capacity. Whether you are working the job of your dreams or just plugging away at a job to get by, having an income is essential to leading a decent life. However, as we see happen from time to time in child support cases it is not always true that everyone wants to work. There are circumstances where parents will earn less money than they otherwise could. Typically, this is done to avoid paying child support.
Unemployment and underemployment
We are all familiar with what unemployment is. When a person is unemployed he or she is not currently earning an income. A “job” has become more difficult to define in recent years. It used to be that work was a physical location where people would go to earn an income. However, with the advent of remote work, we know that people can earn an income from just about anywhere. As such, where and how we work has changed. However, the end point of work is still the same- earning an income.
Underemployment is less well-known. When it comes to underemployment, this is a phenomenon that is probably as old as unemployment. Underemployment means working less than a person may otherwise be able to. When a person is underemployed he earns less of an income than his abilities and time would allow for. Sometimes this is by choice. For example, if you are caring for a sick relative then you may purposefully be working less than you otherwise may be able to.
However, in the context of child support, some people choose to work less than they could. I would refer to this as purposeful underemployment. Now, you may be wondering- why would anyone ever choose to work less than they may be able to? Or to earn less of an income than they may be able to? Isn’t the world getting more expensive by the day? When it comes to child support there is a method to the madness, so to speak.
Underemployment as a means to avoid child support
For child support reasons, a person may choose to earn less money than he may be able to to avoid child support. Or at least, to avoid paying as much child support as he otherwise would. Remember earlier in today’s blog post when we talked about how child support is based on your net monthly resources? Those resources are almost always composed primarily of your income from your work. The income that you earn is reduced somewhat and then multiplied against a percentage based on the number of kids you have. The product of that calculation is the child support you must pay.
You can probably see where this is going. By earning less money you would pay less in child support. Then again, by earning less money you would be able to afford less in your life overall. How this makes sense to most people I do not know. However, if you find yourself in a situation where most of your daily needs are met outside your income then you may be able to justify this type of behavior. Then again, considering that your child is the one who suffers here, it is not something most parents would consider.
A law is passed to fight underemployment for child support purposes
As of 2023, this type of situation has changed to a certain extent. The State of Texas passed a law known as Senate Bill 870. Judges now have the authority to order parents who have fallen behind in paying child support to find a job. It would be difficult for a judge to order a person to start working. There is more to earning an income than simply cashing checks. However, judges are within the law to now order a person to start finding a job. An alternative to this would be to enter a program where the purpose was finding gainful employment.
How does this work in a practical sense?
To those of you who are dealing with situations involving underemployment and child support, this may all sound good. However, you need to know how to use this law to your advantage. Being sick and tired of barely making ends meet because of an artificially lowered amount of child support is stressful. This new law can help you but only if you know how to use it to your advantage. Here are some ways that the law can positively impact your family.
Let’s say that you have learned that your co-parent is working a job that is beneath his income potential. We could point towards a circumstance where your ex-spouse had always worked in a corporate environment earning a salary. When you were married, he was the primary breadwinner. Now that you are divorced the kids live with you primarily. Your ex-husband has less of a day-to-day responsibility when it comes to raising the kids.
In this situation, you would need to present a court with proof of the underemployment. If you are successful then your ex-spouse can be ordered to seek employment that is more commensurate with their experience and skills. Jail time and penalties can result from the failure to seek employment as ordered by the court.
Why give the courts this authority?
It used to be that there would be parents who would make less money on purpose to avoid child support. This may not have been an issue for most family law cases but it would come up every so often. Some parents would be ok with earning less of an income if it meant paying less in child support. This would be a situation that the custodial parent found themselves in that would be less than desirable.
This may not be as big of an issue for professional-level parents. However, for other parents, this law is a huge change to the child support landscape. Instead of struggling to find help when it comes to receiving insufficient child support this law intercedes. Judges used to have their hands tied when it came to ordering child support. Parents could be ordered to pay child support but the situation would usually stop there. Courts could only watch as parents maneuvered their way in and around child support obligations.
Now a court has the authority to order a person to enroll in classes, assistance programs, or other processes designed to help them find employment. Noncustodial parents could fade into oblivion after a court date. Now a court can order that person to find work, enroll in a job skills course, or take other concrete steps toward finding suitable employment.
Additional updates related to Senate Bill 870
Placing a lien on the property is a big deal. If you own real estate with a lien attached to it there are limits to what you can do with the property. For example, try selling a house when there is a substantial lien on the property. It won’t sell. You would need to pay your debt and have the lien released before the property can sell.
In the context of child support, a lien can be placed on property to motivate a noncustodial parent to pay. The change to this law is that a custodial parent may release the child support lien on the noncustodial parent’s property. If your co-parent begins to pay the child support owed you may press a court to release the lien on real estate property.
Jail time and child support
A major issue that comes up in the world of child support is how to handle this subject when jail time enters the picture. If you are a noncustodial parent who pays child support then you would still have your obligation to pay child support even while behind bars. Your reward for being released from jail or prison may be to pay child support. This back child support can be a burden that some parents cannot recover from.
Now a family court judge can change the child support obligation of a parent who goes behind bars. It is extremely unlikely that your co-parent would be able to pay child support while serving a prison sentence. This ability to hold a child support obligation for the duration of a prison sentence does not apply to parents who are serving time for the failure to pay child support. If family violence was an issue in your family then this protection also does not apply.
Final thoughts on Senate Bill 870 and child support
Thank you for choosing to spend part of your day with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan. We hope that our blog post today illustrated points regarding the new Senate Bill 870 and the changes it brings to the child support arena. Our attorneys post unique and informative content like this each day of the week. If you have a question about this topic or any other please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
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Evan Hochschild was raised in Houston, TX and graduated from Cypress Creek High School. He went on to graduate from Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX with an undergraduate degree in Political Science. While in college, Evan was a four-year letterman on the Cross Country team.
Following in the footsteps of his grandfather and uncle before him, Evan attended law school after he completed in his undergraduate studies. He graduated from St. Mary’s University School of Law and has practiced in a variety of areas in the law- including family law.
Mr. Hochschild is guided by principles which place the interests of clients first. Additionally, Evan seeks to provide information and support for his clients with the heart of a teacher.
Evan and his wife have four small children together. He enjoys afternoons out and about with his family, teaching Sunday school at his church and exercising. A veteran attorney of fourteen years, Mr. Hochschild excels in communicating complex ideas in family law simply and directly.
