Evaluating Income Could Reduce Child Support Amount
Video Transcribed: Hello, this is Jason Lile, a father’s rights attorney in northeastern Oklahoma. And if you tuned in last time you heard me talk about four reasons why men generally might not do well in court and get what they want and need in court in a custody and visitation battle.
I’d also like to talk to you about child support. Many of my clients, or prospective clients, come into my office concerned that they’re just going to get hosed when it comes to child support. So how do you avoid paying child support? While you start out by not asking that question? You don’t avoid paying child support. If your mindset is you want to avoid child support altogether, you’re just going to be behind the eight ball already. In Oklahoma, there is a formula that’s contained in a spreadsheet put out by the state of Oklahoma pursuant to Oklahoma statutes that includes your gross monthly income, and the mother’s gross monthly income. That includes who’s paying child insurance, whether there’s childcare and various data points that go into this and spit out a number.
So how can you avoid paying excessive amounts of child support? Well, the hard truth is that if you make more money than your spouse or the baby’s mother, you’re very likely going to be ordered to pay child support. And the concern isn’t avoiding child support, it’s avoiding excessive child support.
So a good attorney should do the following things for you. Number one, make sure that your income and the type of income that you make are evaluated. If it’s self-employment in any way, you should get credit for that. Number two, make sure that child care that’s being paid for is done the right way on the child support calculator, and make sure that health insurance that’s done the right way should be put correctly in the child support calculator.
Make sure that if you’re paying anything for health insurance or you have a cheaper option for health insurance, that that’s done in a way that maximizes the amount you contribute directly to the children and minimizes the amount that you’re paying in child support.
And lastly, you need to make sure that you have as many overnights on paper as possible, for two reasons. The obvious reason is you want to spend as much time as possible with your children. That helps you down the road with your relationship with them and will make sure that you get to co-parent those children for the rest of their childhood. But the secondary reason is, in Oklahoma, your child support will go down if you have at least 121 overnights per year on paper, okay? And, if you have up to 180 overnights, then in between that number 121 or 180, you will get a reduction on your child support called the shared parenting time reduction.
Now, the representatives of the mother will know this. It will be something that they know they will aim for. You’ll often see on child support calculators where the man wasn’t properly represented or represented at all, they have 120 overnights on paper or less. Well, guess what? They get no shared parenting time credit. So in that case, it’s very important that you have a lawyer who understands that, who knows how to properly present arguments in court and negotiate with the other attorney for as much overnight time as you can get and deserve.
The default in Oklahoma is split time. You should be getting half of that child’s time, and that means that you need to arrange your personal life or discuss with your attorney your work schedule and availability to make sure that you can do that. And when it comes time to court, you can honestly tell the judge, if necessary, in a way that matters to the judge that you are available, willing, and ready to take at least half of that child’s time.
So if you need help with a custody or visitation case and child support issues, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I would love to consult with you. I’d love to work with you. Again, my name is Oklahoma child support Attorney Jason Lile, and I am the tulsafathersrights.lawyer in northeastern Oklahoma.
