New Child Support Calculations

     There has been some hype lately about new child support calculations that will be based on both parents' incomes.  Starting on July 1, 2013, child support will be calculated somewhat differently.  It is said that New Hampshire currently follows a "percentage of income" model, and beginning July, the calculation will be made on a "income shares" model.  I think that distinction is misleading.

     The title of the new law is: "AN ACT revising the child support guidelines based on an income shares model of calculating child support."  The idea is to calculate child support by combining incomes to best approximate how the children would have been supported if the parents still lived together.  The bill explains it like this:

Statement of Intent. The general court finds that child support policy in New Hampshire is based on the principle that both parents should share responsibility for the economic support of their children. The general court further finds that the income shares model, which presumes that a child should receive the same proportion of parental income that the child would have received if the parents lived together, is a more appropriate model on which to base the state’s child support formula and guidelines. This legislation is intended to implement the recommendations of the 2009 New Hampshire Child Support Guidelines Review and Recommendations that the state child support guidelines and child support formula be revised to reflect recent estimates of expenditures on child-rearing and to produce results consistent with the income shares philosophy for calculating child support.

 

     While this new bill tries to make it sound as though this is an entirely new approach to calculating child support - it isn't.  If you have been through the court system in a child support matter, you have seen the Child Support Guidelines Worksheet ("CSGW").  The CSGW is the formula by which "guideline" child support is calculated.  The worksheet includes both parents' incomes, and then applies a percentage to the combined income total.

 

    Yet, the new law does include a positive change.  What the revised statute does do is to create a sliding scale of percentages based on income.  So now, the child support calculation will be based on a percentage that varies according to the number of children and income.  Below is the language from the new law setting forth the percentages:

Net income 1 Child 2 Children 3 Children 4 or more Children

$15,000 or less 25.6 percent 35.5 percent 42.5 percent 45 percent

$25,000 25 35 42 44.5

$35,000 24 33.5 40.5 43

$50,000 23 31.5 38 40.5

$60,000 22 30.5 36.5 39

$70,000 21.5 30 36 38.5

$80,000 21 29 35 37.5

$90,000 21 28.5 34.5 37

$100,000 20 27.5 33 35.5

$125,000 or more 19 26 31 33.5