Raleigh, North Carolina (Gailor Wallis & Hunt) — In almost every case, one parent will be ordered to provide monthly child support payments to the other parent. In the event that the combined pretax income of both parents is less than $300,000 the court will probably calculate child support using the North Carolina Child Support Guidelines.

“Income” means a parent’s actual gross income from any source, including but not limited to income from employment or self-employment, ownership or operation of a business, rental of property, retirement disability pay to give a few examples. If the court finds that a parent’s voluntary unemployment or underemployment is the result of a parent’s bad faith or deliberate suppression of income to avoid or minimize his or her child support obligation, child support may be calculated based on the parent’s potential, rather than actual, income.

However, potential income may not be imputed to a parent who is physically or mentally incapacitated or is caring for a child who is under the age of three years and for whom child support is being determined. Although the parents must file financial affidavits of income and expenses for themselves and children, the guidelines are generally based on the combined gross incomes of the parties and the number of nights that the children spend with each parent. A judge is permitted to deviate from the guideline amounts, but only if extraordinary expenses for a child warrant such a deviation. Such extraordinary expenses may be related to special or private elementary or secondary schools to meet a child’s particular educational needs or expenses for transporting the child between the parents’ homes. Judges without juries hear child support cases.

To find out what your child support obligation may be or what child support you may be entitled to, you can use the child support calculator on our website. However, because there may be reasons why the child support guidelines should not be applied or why you should receive more than the guideline child support amount, you should talk to an attorney about the facts of your case. The attorney can help you understand what is the most likely result in your case and what amount of child support you are likely to receive in court.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Child Support. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.