Lower Your Child Support and Get More Parenting Time
In most cases, you can lower your child support payments by figuring out the correct parenting timeshare percentage and increasing the amount of time you have your children.
Lower your child support payments
Almost every state uses at least these two factors to calculate child support:
- How much time each parent has with the child
- How much income each parent has
Generally speaking, the parent with the least amount of time with the children pays child support to the parent who has more time. Due to this, some parents seek custody to avoid child support.
The amount of time you have with your children is calculated as the:
- Parenting timeshare percentage that shows the percentage of time each parent has the children
- Overnight timeshare percentage which shows the percentage of overnights each parent has the children
- Number of hours that each parent has the children
To get a correct child support calculation, you need to have the right timeshare percentage. Because this is difficult and time consuming to figure out, most lawyers and courts simply guess or estimate the timeshare percentage.
To lower your child support payments you need to figure out your timeshare percentage. Then you can know if your current child support calculation is correct.
Your payments may change just by having the right timeshare percentage. And, if they don't, you can take steps to increase your timeshare percentage so your payments are lower.
Calculate your timeshare percentage
First, you need to know your state's formula for calculating child support so you know what type of timeshare percentage to calculate. Your state may want the parenting timeshare (also called the visitation timeshare), the overnight timeshare, or the number of hours you have the children.
Custody X Change calculates the:
- Parenting or visitation timeshare percentage
- Overnight timeshare percentage
- Number of hours you have your children
To get your timeshare percentage with Custody X Change you enter your parenting time schedule into the software and the program shows you the exact amount of time that each parent has the children.
See the timeshare percentage as you enter in your schedule.
Once your schedule is made, you can print a parenting time report to show the court or your lawyer. Then you will have the right timeshare percentage in your child support calculation.
Print a report that shows the timeshare percentage of each parent.
Increase your parenting time
Once you know your parenting timeshare percentage, you can work to increase your parenting time and lower your child support payments.
Custody X Change shows your timeshare percentage as you make your schedule. With the software you can experiment with your schedule to increase your parenting time. Often, you can make little changes to your schedule that will result in bigger changes to your child support.
Some little changes to make to your schedule are:
- Adding 30 minutes or so to your visits throughout the week
- Changing the start day of your schedule
- Looking at holiday time and increasing the number of holidays in your schedule
- Adding vacation time to your schedule
- Changing your holiday schedule
- Adding 3rd party time to your schedule
You should also check your state laws about how much parenting time you need in order to claim your child as a dependent on your tax forms. In some states, you need a certain timeshare percentage to claim your child. If you can increase your timeshare percentage to that amount, you can save a lot of money on your taxes.
Track your actual parenting time
You may also want to track your actual parenting time because you may have the children more than you are scheduled. If you do, you can go to court and get your child support payments changed.
If you have your children more than you are scheduled and you aren't currently claiming your children as dependents on your taxes, you should also look into your state custody laws. You may have the children enough to claim them as dependents, and you can go to court and show your actual parenting time and save money on your taxes.
Custody X Change has an actual-time tracking and journaling feature that lets you:
- Track your actual timeshare percentage
- Keep notes about visitation in a journal
- Print a report that shows the difference between the scheduled timeshare percentage and the actual timeshare percentage
- Print a calendar that shows the actual parenting time schedule