Kansas and Missouri Child Support

Child Support Overview

Child support is money paid and intended for the benefit of your children. A parent who pays child support is a parent who satisfies his or her joint obligation to share in the financial support of your child. If you are a parent, you and your co-parent share in an obligation to financially support your child until the child emancipates. Kansas and Missouri calculate this obligation through standardized worksheets which determine monthly child support based on a series of financial entries. The primary entries include the individual incomes of each party and other, more specific adjustments for certain child-related expenses you incur such as daycare or health insurance. In many cases, parents are even given an adjustment associated with the amount of parenting time they exercise or for the support they pay on behalf of their other minor children. And in certain cases, when the combined incomes of the parties exceed a certain threshold, the worksheet used to calculate support may call for an “extended-income” formula which boosts support percentages across the board.

Child Support Guidelines

In both Kansas and Missouri child support is governed by a set of statutes commonly referred to as the guidelines.

The Kansas Child Support Guidelines can be found here:

http://www.kscourts.org/Rules-procedures-forms/Child-support-guidelines/CSG%20Clean%20100815.pdf

The Missouri statute on child support establishment can be found here:

http://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=452.340&bid=33223&hl=

Calculation of Child Support

Calculation of child support is a required step in both Kansas and Missouri. Not every case is the same and thus, not every child support order is the same. While it is true there are certain situations which can ultimately lead to an order for a very small or zero-sum child support order, those situations are rare and typically only seen when both parents earn comparable incomes and have agreed to share equal parenting time or share equally in the expenses of the children. In general, the non-custodial parent pays child support to the custodial parent. The term “custodial” does not refer to legal custody. Rather, a custodial parent is the parent with whom the children primarily reside. Sometimes the custodial parent is referred to as the parent whose address is designated as the child’s address for all education and mailing purposes. Generally, the custodial parent will be the parent who exercises most, or more, of the child’s parenting time. This parent would typically be the parent receiving support on the child support worksheet.

Child Support Worksheets

A simple or standard worksheet may have relatively few entries such as the incomes of each party and the monthly cost of work-related daycare or health and dental insurance premiums for the children. Sometimes a worksheet will include multiple entries accounting for a potential host of adjustments including special needs adjustments, overnight parenting time credits, parenting time adjustments, adjustments for spousal maintenance paid or received and adjustments for other court ordered support paid. In Missouri this worksheet is called the Form 14. The dedicated family law attorneys at Fairbanks Law utilize the most up to date and standardized software associated with calculating child support using the Form 14.

More important than use of technology, is the experience each family law attorney at Fairbanks Law has in litigating the myriad of issues related to the calculation and enforcement of child support. The seasoned child support attorneys at Fairbanks Law can help custodial parents to maximize support through financial investigation, discovery of hidden income, exposure of deferred compensation or the capture of in-kind compensation such as employer provided auto allowances, company cars, cell phone or cafeteria plans of the parent paying support. Likewise, the seasoned attorneys at Fairbanks Law have worked to limit the exposure of parties who pay support by helping them to obtain available financial credits associated with the amount of parenting time they exercise, or in spearheading accurate arrearage accountings for parents who owe past due support.

Each year, new provisions are added to the child support guidelines and as case law on child support evolves, the guidelines are intended to react and meet the interpretations of child support law by our highest courts. Every case is different. Not every support order is the same. Find out more about child support in your case by scheduling a consultation with an experienced and knowledgeable Fairbanks Law child support attorney today.

Child Support Agreements

Calculation of child support, calculation of parenting time adjustments to child support, calculating self-employment income for child support, determining child support credits for health and dental insurance premiums, sharing of out-of-pocket medical costs. Let the skilled child custody attorneys at Fairbanks Law help you ensure the agreements reached regarding your children are made in their best interests now, and in the future.