child-support
Detaching child support amount from the liable parent&#39;s income
<p>The amount that a parent liable for child support must pay is usually calculated based on their income. If the parent makes heaps of money, the child (via the caring parent) gets essentially a slice of that — even if that is <em>much</em> more than the maximum amount that say 90% of all children in the country receive in their support.</p>
<p>Bob and Alice, never been a couple, are about to have a child. Alice wishes to raise the child alone. Bob couldn't be happier about that and is happy to pay child support as well.</p>
<p>One thing that Bob is not happy about is that the amount he pays will follow his income. He wants to fix/cap the amount. He only wants the child to receive essential/reasonable support and <em>not</em> pamper them (let alone allow Alice to take advantage of the situation).</p>
<p>It looks like the law allows for that to some extent. In New Zealand, the parents can sign a <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1991/0142/latest/whole.html#DLM254070" rel="nofollow noreferrer">voluntary agreement</a> setting out how much Bob pays. However, Bob is not 100% protected by that. Even if the the agreement is accepted by the Commissioner, it won't stop Alice from applying to cancel it later and start calculating the amount based on Bob's income anyway (<a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1991/0142/latest/whole.html#DLM254313" rel="nofollow noreferrer">section 65</a>).</p>
<p>Essentially, so long as Bob does not make it into the Forbes list, Alice will probably stay happy with the voluntary agreement. But if Bob does, Alice will realise how much the child (and, let's face it, <em>she</em> as well) are missing, and will apply under section 65.</p>
<p>Are there any jurisdictions in the world where child support voluntary agreements can be set in stone and withstand challenges by greedy caring parents?</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Are there any jurisdictions in the world where child support voluntary
agreements can be set in stone and withstand challenges by greedy
caring parents?</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="/questions/tagged/colorado" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;colorado&#39;" rel="tag">colorado</a></p>
<p>Child support laws in the United States have a great deal of similarity with each other because in order for the federal government to certify that a state is eligible to participant in some important welfare programs at federal expense for its citizens, it must have in place state laws related to child support that meet certain minimum standards. But, since there are still nuances of differences between U.S. states, I will speak in this answer only to Colorado, with which I am most familiar.</p>
<p>In any case in which a child has parents, whose paternity is established, who are separated and seek to have a child support order entered by the court (or where one of the parents has received welfare payments and the welfare program administrator insists), a court is required to determine the amount of child support that would be due under the state's statutory child support guidelines.</p>
<p>This formula is a function of: the number of children the couple has that are eligible for child support, the gross income of the first parent, the gross income of the second parent, the number of nights the child spends with each parent, an adjustment for extraordinary expenses of the child, and an adjustment for in kind payments of a parent (e.g. health insurance premiums or private school tuition), and how many other minor children each parent has with someone else. There are also a small number for forms of income (typically a part-time second job in addition to the full time job) that are ignored for this purpose. The court can also do the calculations in a manner that reflected more income than a parent actually earned if the court finds that the person is deliberately and unreasonably earning less income than they are able to earn for the purpose of reducing their child support payments.</p>
<p>In a case where the child spends most overnights each year with the less affluent parent, and there are no significant in kind payments or extraordinary expenses or other non-shared children, this typically works out to be something on the order of 1/8th of the difference in income between the two parents per child that they share, although the actual calculation is a bit more complicated than that, and the formula itself differs a bit based upon how many nights the child spends with each parent, with one formula when it is reasonably close to 50-50 and another when it is very lopsided.</p>
<p>The actual number comes out of a table that only goes up to upper middle class low six figure combined incomes. If the parties are more affluent than that, the judge has wide discretion to award child support in any amount somewhat more than the top of the table amount, and according to a many factor test that includes considerations like the accustomed standard of living of the respective parents.</p>
<p>Even in an ordinary case, the guidelines are only advisory, but if a judge deviates from them without good cause, the decision would be reversed as an abuse of discretion.</p>
<p>The parents cannot, as a matter of law, simply reach a binding agreement between themselves as to what the amount will be. Any agreement relating to parental responsibilities, parenting time, or child support, must be independently reviewed by the court (which sometimes appoints a third-party professional to advocate for the child) to determine if the agreement is in the child's best interest, which the vast majority of the time, the judge does.</p>
<p>Each time that enough time elapses since the last child support order and there has been a substantial change of circumstances for the parents, either of them may apply to the court to modify the child support order. But, the amount owed for payments due before the motion to modify cannot be changed retroactively (and child support payments cannot be discharged in bankruptcy where it has the highest priority for payment, even above legal fees necessary to conduct the bankruptcy).</p>
<p>So, on one hand, the amount of child support owed isn't a simple percentage of the incomes or income differences of the parents. But on the other hand, the parents are as a matter of law prohibited from reaching an agreement as to child support that can not be modified prospectively based upon a substantial change of circumstances from when the current child support order was entered. If no one moves to modify it, it won't change, but neither parent can validly agree not to move to modify it.</p>
