The North Carolina Child Support Guidelines are used by the Court to determine what a parent should pay. Unlike spousal support, this is a uniform methodology to determine obligations based primarily on income, and overnights. The Court utilizes three (3) worksheets to determine obligations of parents and this results in uniform rulings and financial obligations across the state.
If it’s uniform, and there’s a form to figure it out, why do I need an attorney? Well, the real argument lies in the numbers that make it to the worksheet, and sometimes, the number that doesn’t. The child support worksheets produce a “presumptive” child support amount. Absent good reason otherwise, this is the amount going to be ordered by a judge.
Consider if you’re a single parent of a teenager with a license. Under normal circumstances, their car insurance and cell phone would not be considered a “necessary expense”. But if you rely on that teenager to drive their siblings to all of their events and other obligations, it absolutely could be added to the worksheet and split between both parents.
On the other side of that fence, perhaps, you find your self in a situation where the other parent is intentionally not working in an effort to inflate the child support number. Said another way, they are asking you to pay for their lifestyle. Through discovery, you may be able to determine that they do actually have income they aren’t reporting, because how else are they able to afford to travel to the beach three times a year? You can request the court “impute” income to a parent that is intentionally working under their ability, or is hiding income.
Understanding your family’s needs and dynamics is critical to producing a child support obligation that is consistent with the child’s reasonable needs, and a parent’s ability to pay. The worksheet that is produced is only part of the story. For some families, the argument may stop there. But for others, it may require research, and careful trial planning to produce results that are fair and reasonable.