San Antonio Divorce Lawyer Blog

Texas Child Support Guidelines

Texas family law attorneys are keenly aware of the child support percentage guidelines set out in the Texas Family Code, which prescribe a mathematical formula for calculating child support.  These percentage guidelines come up in virtually 100% of all family law cases involving issues of child support.

The statutory guidelines set out in §154.123 of the Texas Family Code are legally presumed to be in the best interest of the child.

In Bexar County especially, attorneys are often resigned to the premise that "child support is what it is," and that not much can be done about it. 

However, the truth of the matter is that the Texas Family Code contains a number of provisions allowing a judge to set child support above or below the statutory guideline amounts.  §154.123 of the Texas Family Code, which is entitled "Additional Factors for Court to Consider," sets out 17 separate things the Court must consider in determining whether application of the guidelines would be unjust or inappropriate under the circumstances.

Interstate Child Support Modifcation

As a family law attorney in San Antonio, Texas, I've been seeing a lot of issues coming up lately regarding the modification of child support when the parents live in different states.  It is amazing to me how confusing this area of the law is to judges and clients, and worse yet, to lawyers.

This post is a short primer on how child support modification works when one parent lives in a state other than the state in which the the child and/or the other parent live(s).  There are several different scenarios, but let's start with the most common, and work our way up:

Scenario "A":   Two people who live in Texas have a child together (it doesn't matter if they're married or not), and a child custody and support order is later issued in Texas (whether it's a divorce, paternity action, or otherwise just doesn't matter). Mom gets primary custody and Dad has to pay child support.  Later, the father moves to another state when he gets a higher paying job, and mom wants to increase the child support due to dad making more money.   Mom and child stay in Texas.

Scenario "B":  Same scenario as above, except the two people live and have their child in another state.  Later on, Dad moves to Texas for a better paying job.  Mom and child stay in the original state. 

"Scenario "C":  Same scenario as above--support order issued in another state, mom and child then move to Texas and Dad moves to some other state, so that no one lives in the original state any longer (Mom and child are in Texas, Dad is somewhere else other than the original state).

There are obviously some variations to these scenarios, but these are the 3 basic scenarios that will determine what laws apply, and how they are applied. Obviously, the same rules would apply regardless of which parent had primary custody of the child.

The body of law that controls interstate child support matters (as opposed to child custody and visitation matters is called the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA).  A version of that law has been passed in every state, and it is for the most part the same in every state.  Interstate child custody and visitation disputes are governed by another interstate law called the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act,  (UCCJEA) which I have discussed in other blog posts. 

Quite simply, the UCCJEA governs child custody cases when interstate elements are present.  UIFSA governs child support  cases where interstate elements are present.  This is the first source of confusion to clients, lawyers and judges.  I've seen lawyers--even ones who are board-certified in family law-- file child support modification pleadings based on the jurisdictional requirements of the UCCJEA instead of UIFSA, and I've even seen judges agree with them at first, until they were educated on the law!    

Texas Child Support - things you should know

As a San Antonio, Texas family law attorney, I see child support issues come up nearly all the time, whether in divorce cases, child custody cases, child support enforcement cases, child support modification cases, paternity cases, and even in adoption/termination cases.

Most folks know that Texas applies percentage guidelines to calculate child support.  In a nutshell, Texas figures out your NET income (after taxes, costs for health insurance, and a few other things), then multiplies that figure by a percentage which has been statutorily "presumed" to be in the best interest of the child.

What many people don't understand are the factors which a judge can consider in reducing or increasing the presumptive amount of child support.  The Texas Family Code lists a whole bunch of those factors.  Chief among those is the costs the non-custodial parent may be paying in order to exercise visitation.  For example, it isn't uncommon for a custodial parent to move out of state shortly after a divorce (unless there is a geographical restriction--but that's a different subject).  In doing so, the custodial parent is engaging in conduct which will increase the non-custodial parent's cost of exercising visitation, even if the parties split the costs. 

Since the Texas Family Code also provides that continuing and frequent contact between the non-custodial parent and the child is in the best interest of the child, the Court will often reduce child support to account for those increased costs.  The Court can also simply require the custodial parent to pay 100% of the travel costs, which I think is a much better idea.  That way, the  actual costs of visitation are born by the custodial parent, rather than the hypothetical costs.  For instance, reducing child support isn't really fair to the custodial parent if the non-custodial parent doesn't in fact exercise any of his or her visitation.

The previous examples assumed the custodial parent moved first, thereby being the cause of the increased cost of visitation.  What about if the parents are already living in different states at the time of the suit?  Or if the non-custodial parent moves to get a better job?  The Court can still reduce child support to account for the increased cost of visitation if the Court is convinced that it will help the non-custodial parent be able to visit his child. 

What about getting more child support than what's called for by the percentage guidelines?  That's also a possibility under the Texas Family Code.  Occasionally, a child is considered a "special needs" child, requiring an extraordinary amount of financial support (uninsured medical expenses, special education, etc.).  In such cases, the Court will look at the parents' respective ability to pay those costs, may increase the statutory amount of child support to account for the child's needs. 

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.