Child support is a highly regulated area of the law. It is based on an algebraic formula. The basic components of child support are how much dad makes, how much mom makes and how much time each parent spends with the child(ren). The calculation of child support has been somewhat simplified with the incorporation of the algebraic formula into a computer program. Even with the ease of a computer program, this area of family is still confusing.
A decision from the California Court of Appeals has the following to say about child support: “as we have noted, the algebraically-based computation method has been likened to something out of Alice in wonderland. Actually, it is worse than that. The system is a kind of hybrid of quantum physics and Zen philosophy. Support is calculated on after-tax income, but after-tax income may be itself affected by the support order! Thus, in a manner reminiscent of an attempt to pin down an electron or the image of a snake eating its own tail, the nooks and crannies of the computer program involved in this case contain sophisticated feedback loops which seek, in essence, to continually adjust for the tax effects of a given order, but at the same time formulate an order in light of those same tax effects. The complexity is compounded because not only does every child support calculation in California now require the parties to do their tax returns (a fiendishly complicated process by itself), but on top of the tax computations an algebraic formula must be applied to the result. For a judge trying to manually apply the law, it would be like taking an algebra exam after doing somebody else's tax returns.”
The Law Offices of Kenneth L. Harvey has decades of experience in the child support area and use that experience to assure the client that the amount of child support ordered will be in compliance with the law.