Legal Question in Family Law in California

You need to file a divorce case and in the initial filing include an OSC to establish temporary custody and support orders. The formula for support is complicated, even a rough summary is complicated, but I'll try. First off it is not based on "take-home" but rather a sometimes complicated formula that determines "disposable income." But it is not "disposable income" like that usually means, which is what is left after food, housing, utilities, etc. For child support purposes "disposable income" is similar to, but not exactly the same as take-home income. So you can use take-home as a ball park number anyway. The formula is then based on custodial or visitation time to each parent. So let's say you have the son 80% of the time (usually the dad gets more than that if he wants it, but it makes the math simple). The support formula would be roughly (not exactly because, as I said, it's more complicated than this): 25% of his disposable income, times 80%, LESS 25% of YOUR disposable income times 20%. This is because you are each presumed to owe 25% of your income to the support of your son (it goes up with more kids), but you are also presumed to be spending that when the child is with you. So he only owes you his 25% for the 80% time the boy is with you (in our made up situation), and you owe him your 25% for the 20% of the time the boy is with him. So once you do the math it turns out to be 20% of his disposable income minus 5% of yours. If custody was 60/40, it would be 60% of his 25% minus 40% of your 25%, which would mean he owes 15% of his disposable income minus 10% of yours.