Legal Question in Family Law in California

That is a frequently contested issue, particularly where the self employed person has set up a corporation or LLC. The obvious temptation is for the self employed parent to park money in the company and/or run expenses through the company in order to make their "income" low. On the other hand, a parent is not obligated never to maintain any kind of reserve or never to invest business income back into the business. I had one client whose husband paid himself $80,000 a year from his corporation, and amassed over $300,000 in cash in the corporation's bank accounts. I think you can see why support was ordered on an income above $80,000. The bottom line is if the business owner is not paying themselves the full profits of the business, the parties have to agree on an income figure, and if they can't you have to litigate it and let the judge decide based on the facts of the case and the books of the corporation.