QUESTION

What could happen if she goes to the court and will the judge agree with her and give a court order?

Asked on Jan 15th, 2015 on Child Custody - Washington
More details to this question:
My ex-wife and I have a joint custody of 3 children, 15, 13, and 11. The children spend 50% of their time at each parent's house. Ex-wife is re-married now, and living with her husband. After divorce, I paid spousal maintenance for 5 years (we were married for 11 years), but she never worked/earned income. We have a divorce decree as to child support, but we've been verbally agreeing on how much I pay to her. According to the state’s child support economic table, the child support for our 3 children should be about $1700 a month. My understanding is that both parents are responsible for contributing to this child support amount. However, she refuses to work, and instead, claims that she is entitled to receiving the child support for the expenses that incur while the children are with her. Currently I'm paying her $500 a month, per our agreement. She wants more from me. She says she will take this case to the court if I don't agreeing on increased payment.
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1 ANSWER

William M Stoddard
Going to court may to your advantage. The court will input income to her. Whether she makes money or not, she has the obligation. What you really need to do is run worksheets with her inputted income to see how it will come out for you. If the total support is that amount based solely on your income, obviously the amount will go higher, but you will owe only your percentage of the whole figure with your income and her having had inputted income. The big question is how do the tax deductions go between you. The worksheets have ways to compute this. And more important, are you getting all the credits you should be. The amount you have agreed to pay may be a bit shy of what the true amount should be, but you can argue that she has to pay everything out of what you give her, nothing additional is owed like school clothes, sports fees or extra curricular activities. I suspect she asks for additional for these. In any case going to the court for a set figure for support may not be as scary as you believe and may cut out the extras she probably asks for you to pay too. If you have 65% of the income between you and your income is presented correctly - namely net income, not gross or adjusted gross - and she is obligated to bring something to the table by inputted figures by age. then you would only owed 65% of the amount support is calculated to be. And you may be able to get two of the tax deductions, so your tax bill would be lower. Then there is the extra days you have the children (you said you have them half the time - well you get a credit for that against the support owed), you may not be hurt at all by a court review. You need to find someone who will run the numbers for you, just so you can figure this out. Running the numbers probably will cost you $50.
Answered on Jan 20th, 2015 at 9:00 AM

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