Child Support and Joint Custody

Child custody often comes into question when dealing with a joint custody case. Most co-parents do not often relate the two with one another or they simply rule out the issue of child support because they feel that joint custody should not include any child support. The reality is that many custody agreements will include both child support and joint custody even though they may seem to be conflicting ideas.

Child support and joint custody as a pair

Joint custody is a fairly simple concept. In a joint custody agreement both co-parents shared legal and/or physical custody of their child. In cases where joint custody is awarded, co-parents are also expected to share the financial responsibilities for the child. This is why many co-parents often overlook child support and joint custody as a pair. The reason being is that the issues of child support and joint custody are not governed by the same organizations. Issues of child support fall under the Child Support Standards Act, or CSSA. Although these national standards are focused on handling child support issues, they do not address the possibility of child support and joint custody together. Since this issue is left out of the CSSA it is up to the courts in each individual state to address this issue.

How does the court determine child support?

In cases where joint custody is not awarded, it is easy for the courts to determine how child support will be awarded. They will simply require the co-parent who does not have custody of the child to pay child support. The amount of child support that is to be paid is based on a number of different factors that the court will observe. These factors often include the annual income of each co-parent, the total number of children in the family, and so on. These factors affecting the amount of child support to be paid are dependent on each individual state.

In order to understand the concept of combining child support and joint custody you must realize that joint custody agreements are not always so cut and dry. More often than not, a joint custody agreement will not allow co-parents to split their time evenly. Many joint custody agreements will award one co-parent with 60% of the custodial time and the other with 40%. These percentages can greatly vary. Distribution of time is a very important factor in the determination of child support. This is because the co-parent who only has 40% of the custodial time is still responsible for 50% of the financial responsibilities for the child. In this case, the co-parent with only 40% custodial time would be granted small child support payments from the other co-parent.

Some truth about child support and joint custody

Joint custody is actually a very broad term. As it was stated above, joint custody can be any combination of legal and physical custody. The most common form of joint custody is when one co-parent is awarded sole legal custody of the child and both co-parents share physical custody of the child. In rare cases co-parents may only share legal custody of the child and not share physical custody. In this case, legal custody has no effect on how child support is determined simply because it doesn’t have anything to do with how custodial time is split.

Child support and joint custody can often be confusing subjects. Since both are very dependent on the rules and regulations of each individual state it is important for co-parents to contact a family law professional in their state regarding any further questions. Understanding these issues is only the beginning. The next objective is to effectively implement your child support and joint custody. The OurFamilyWizard website® has been helping co-parents to effectively manage their child support and joint custody agreements for years. For more information on how the OurFamilyWizard website® can help you check out our Joint Custody page.