Parents are expected to financially support their children and provide for their needs. When parents are married or living together, they will usually combine their finances to cover all of their household expenses and any other costs involved in raising their children. However, the issue of financial support becomes more complicated when parents get divorced or split up. In these cases, child support orders will need to be established to ensure that both parents will contribute toward their children’s needs. Parents will want to understand what expenses are covered by child support and whether they will need to address any other costs related to raising their children.
Basic Child Support Obligations and Additional Expenses
In family law cases involving the custody of children, child support obligations will be calculated based on the total income earned by both parents. This is known as a “basic child support obligation,” and it is meant to represent the amount that a couple would have spent to cover their children’s needs if they were still married or living together. The total amount of this obligation will be allocated between the parents based on their individual income levels. In cases where parents divide parenting time equally or when children spend near-equal amounts of time in each parent’s home, additional calculations may be performed to ensure that the parents’ financial obligations address the percentage of time children live with each parent.
As the name implies, the basic child support obligation is meant to address children’s daily needs and cover expenses such as groceries, housing, utilities, and clothing. However, there are several other types of expenses that parents will usually need to address, and these expenses may be added to the parents’ child support obligations. These may include:
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