Legal Question in Family Law in California

Well that's a great question, and it takes dozens of pages of law to explain all of it. So the following is necessarily simplified, but should give you a general idea.

The complicated part is determining "spendable" income. This is nearly as complex as calculating Adjusted Gross Income for your taxes. There are all sorts of laws and rules on what counts as income and what does not, what to do about discretionary bonuses, etc., and there are all sorts of rules and regulations on what deductions from income are allowed to reach the net income figure for each spouse. A few big/common points are: 1. new spouse income - yes it goes in the calculation; but only for estimating taxes, not for adding to income. 2. Children of other relationships - deductions are made for them. 3. Living expenses - nope, not even deductible ones like mortgage interest; you only have to list living expenses on the forms because they can be looked at by the court if there is a request to deviate from guideline support, but they are rarely if ever allowed as deductions. 4. Estimated taxes, health insurance, and union and professional dues are really the only significant deductions taken in most cases. Even once you sort out what the legally allowed figures are for each line item, it takes a computer program to figure out the spendable income. So that really is as far as we can go with that part of the process.

Once the net income is calculated it gets simpler. A statutory percentage of that net is deemed owed to the child for support. For two children (if I recall correctly, since the Dissomaster program does this for me so don't hold me to exact numbers) it is 40%. So if your net income for support is 2000/mo, you would owe the children 800/mo. If the father's income nets to 1200/mo, he owes 480/mo to the children. If you have 80% custody, you are then deemed to be spending (regardless of realilty) 640/mo on the children and owe only 160/mo for when they are not with you. He would be deemed to be spending 96/mo when they are with him and owe 384/mo for when they are not with him. The last step is the lesser owed amount is deducted from the higher owed amount to get the net owed. So in our scenario, the 160 you owe him while they are with him is deducted from the 384 he owes you for when they are with you and he winds up with a net support payment of 224/mo payable to you. As you should see, as the ratios of time and net income shift, the results vary dramatically. In this scenario, at 65% custody to you, he would still owe you a token payment, and by 60% custody to you, you would be owing him a little.

There is good information on child support calculations at the website for the California Department of Child Support Services web page.