Child Support Calculator

What is Child Support?

In scope of family law and government policy, child support constitutes the ongoing practice for a periodic payment, delivered directly by the paying party (obligor) to a receiving party (oblige) for the financial support of children in a relationship or marriage that has been dissolved.

Typically, the individual paying the child-support is a non-custodial parent and the party receiving the funds is a custodial parent, guardian, or government agency.

When a marriage or relationship that involves a child is terminated, both parties must come together to legally resolve custody issues and in some cases, the delivery of child-support. The court system of the particular jurisdiction in which the parents reside, will order one parent to pay the other an established amount for the financial support of their child.

These payments are typically ordered to be delivered monthly; the amount of child-support payments may be set on a circumstantial basis or by using a formula which evaluates the amount thought that the obligor should pay to financially support their child.

What is a Child Support Calculator?

A child support calculator is a state-issued resource, which can be accessed online, that is used to estimate the amount of child support that may be ordered in a particular case.

Child support calculators will require the obligor to satisfy various questions; upon fulfillment the child support calculator will compute the figures and estimate the expected amount of child support.

The typical child support calculator (may vary between state) will ask the indvidiual for the following information: number of children who are the subject of the pending child support case, the monthly Net Income of the Non-Custodial Parent, the amount of monthly alimony paid for children from a prior marriage, the monthly cost of family group health insurance paid by the non-custodial, the monthly Net Income of the Custodial Parent, the monthly cost of daycare paid by the Custodial Parent, and the monthly cost of family group health insurance paid by the Custodial Parent.

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