Texas Child Support Guidelines

As a Texas family-law attorney, I find that child support and how it is calculated in Texas is often misunderstood by my clients.  Child-support issues are commonly and routinely dealt with by Texas divorce lawyers, and I thought I would try to take some of the mystery and guesswork out of the subject.

In Texas, the Texas Family Code contains "percentage guidelines" which are legally presumed to be in the best interest of the child.  Those guideline percentages are as follows:

1 child 2 children 3 children 4 children 5 children 6 or more children

20% of Obligor's Net Resources 25% of Obligor's Net Resources 30% of Obligor's Net Resources 35% of Obligor's Net Resources 40% of Obligor's Net Resources Not less than 40%

The big question, of course, is how to define "net monthly resources".  Well, here's how it usually goes:
We start with the child support obligor's gross income (by the way, "obligor" means the person who has to pay child support, while "obligee" means the person who receives child support).  From the gross income figure, we take out the taxes (FIT, FICA, and Medicare) that would be deducted if the obligor were a single person without any dependents.  Then we deduct whatever the obligor pays for health insurance for his or her child, union dues, and one or two other things that don't usually come into the picture.  That leaves us with the "net monthly resources" of the obligor, to which the percentage guidelines are then applied.

Pretty simple, right?  Wrong.  There are a number of other considerations, such as the following:

(1)  If the child support obligor has other children with someone else, that will effect the percentage guideline amount.  For instance, if the child support obligor has one child with one person, and another child with someone else, the obligor would ideally pay 17.5% of his or her net monthly resources for each child.  There's a whole separate chart in the family code for multiple-family situations.

(2)  The Texas Family Code has a long list of other factors the judge can consider in setting child support below or above guideline amount.  I'd say the most common reason judges set child support below guideline is when the parties live in different states, and the obligor spends a substantial amount of money exercising his or her visitation.  In such cases, Bexar County judges often rule that it is in the best interest of the child to visit the non-custodial parent as frequently as possible, and that setting child support below guidelines is the only way to ensure that happens. 

This is only one factor the Court may consider in setting child support below guideline support.  There are a number of other factors the Court can consider in setting child support above OR below guideline support.  A "special needs" child--one who has unusual medical problems or other special needs which require greater than usual financial contributions from both parents is the most common situation where child support is set above guideline support.

The point of this post?  If you are engaged in a Texas divorce, child-custody or child support dispute, or other proceeding involving the calculation of child support, you should be sure to discuss with your lawyer all of the factors which may ultimately be considered by the judge in setting child support above or below the percentage guidelines in the Texas Family Code.

J. Michael Clay is a child support lawyer and divorce lawyer whose practice primarily focuses on divorce, child custody and child support (establishment, modification, and enforcement), adoption, and other family law issues.

J. Michael Clay is licensed to practice law in the State of Texas in all Texas state courts, and in federal courts in the Western District of Texas.

Not certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization

Comments

[Cheap Texas Divorce]

This post should help thousands of Texans.

[Edgardo R. Baez]

Thank you for putting it on paper for clients to see.