Legal Question in Family Law in California

Neither party's debt is considered in calculating or modifying child support at all. Debt voluntarily incurred after alimony is set will also not be considered in terminating or modifying spousal support. You can't get out of spousal support obligations just by running up debt and then saying you can't pay any more. The only impact the new debt could have is that income tax deductions for deductible interest payments go into the calculation. So if the paying spouse starts getting fat deductions due to deductible interest payments, that will make child support go up and possibly spousal (though generally spousal would not change for that). Likewise, a new spouse and their income will have tax consequences that can make support go up or down slightly, but the new spouse's income is not added to the paying spouse's income to calculate the amount paid, and that income cannot be used to collect payments of support for the previous marriage unless deposited in a joint account with the paying spouse.