Family Support Flashcards
Child Support
What are the three issues that arise under child support claims?
The establishment of child support involves three broad issues:
* the obligation to pay
* the amount of payment; and
* the enforcement of the award
Child Support
What is the goal/focus of child support?
what legal right is it revolved around
- parents have a legal right to support their children
Child Support
How has Congress regulated who pays for child support?
- child support is usually tied to a determination of parentage
- any statute of limitations on paternity suits must be sufficiently long in duration to present a reasonable opportunity for those with an interest in such children to assert claims on their behalf and
- that any time limitation placed on that opportunity must be substantially related to the state’s interest in avoiding the litigation of stale or fraudulent claim
- congress required states to adopt an 18-year statute of limitation for paternity suits as a condition of receiving child support enforcement funds
Child Support
What principles should states base the formulas used to determine child support?
- both parents should share legal responsibility for their children + economic responsibility should be divided in proportion to income.
- the needs of the parents should be considered, but it should never be zero.
- it must cover the child’s basic needs as a first priority but child is entitled to live a higher standard of living if one parent does.
- each child has an equal right to share in that parent’s income. factors to consider include: (1) age, (2) income of parents, (3) income of current spouse, (5) presence of other dependents.
- each child is entitled to determination of support without respect to marital status
- applications of the guideline should be sexually nondiscriminatory.
Child Support
How should guidelines be applied?
- they should be sexually nondiscriminatory
- should not create extraneous negative effects on the major life decisions of each parent
- should avoid creating economic disincentives for remarriage
- should encourage the involvement of both parents
- should take into account financial support provided by parents in shared physical custody and extended visitation agreeents
Turner v. Turner
holding?
- Deviation from child support guidelines requires explanation and justification.
- Ensures transparency and accountability in child support determinations
- requires courts to provide reasons for departing from standard calculations
Jane C. Venohr, Child Support Guidelines and Guidelines Reviews
What are the only requirements federal regulation impose on a state’s guidelines?
- be based on specific descriptive and numeric criteria
- takes into consideration all earnings and incomes of the non-custodial parent
- addresses how the parents will provide for the children’s health carees through insurance coverage and/or through cash medical support.
Jane C. Venohr, Child Support Guidelines and Guidelines Reviews
What considerations do all states share in common when developing guidelines
- they all consider the best interest of the child and the appropriateness of the guidelines-determined support awards
Jane C. Venohr, Child Support Guidelines and Guidelines Reviews
What are some policy considerations when developing child support guidelines?
fairness to parents + children, equity, comprehensiveness, predictability, transparency, and the guidelines are easy to use.
Jane C. Venohr, Child Support Guidelines and Guidelines Reviews
What is the income shares model?
How many states use it?
- each parent is responsible for his or her prorated share of child-rearing costs.
- requires information about each party’s income in the calculation
- the support award is lowered if the custodial parent has income
39 states
Jane C. Venohr, Child Support Guidelines and Guidelines Reviews
What is the obligor income model?
How many states use it?
- considers only the non-custodial parents income
- it assumes that the custodial parents’ expenses are the same percentage of income.
- the custodial parents income has no bearing on the support award amounts.
9
Jane C. Venohr, Child Support Guidelines and Guidelines Reviews
What is the melson formula?
How many states?
- does not relate to measurements of the costs of childrearing
- it considers first the basic needs of the child and each parent
- if the non-custodial parents’ income is sufficient to cover child and parents basic neeeds, an additional percentage is assigned to child support
- this is so that the child can share the same legal standard of the non-custodial parent
- they rarely produce idential amounts
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