subject: What You Should Know About Child Support Payments [print this page] Child support is the amount of money one parent must pay the other after a divorce. The money is suppose to be used for expenses related to raising the children. The amount of money to be paid for child support depends on many different factors.
As a general rule, the parent who gets primary custody of the children is the one who receives child support. Child support payments are determined, in part, by the amount of money the paying parent makes and the number of children who require the support payments.
Child support law specifics are different in every state. To get the specifics for the state in which you live, you need to either discuss the matter with your attorney or do some online research.
Child support is always a point of contention between divorced parents. One of the most common problems is paying parents complaining that the receiving parent is not using the money for the benefit of the children. Paying parents frequently like to use child support as a method of controlling the ex-spouse. They believe that by withholding payment they are controlling the ex-spouse and making it hard for them to survive financially.
Some paying parents simply can't afford to pay. They often find it hard to pay their own living expenses while paying large amounts of money every month in child support. Many times finances change because of remarried, losing a job or developing health problems.
There are millions of dollars in unpaid child support in the United States. Some states are more aggressive than others in trying to collect that unpaid support. Some states, for instance, will refuse to renew your driver's license or your hunting license if you owe unpaid child support. Many state attorney general offices are also intercepting income tax refunds and applying the money to unpaid child support. You should contact an attorney in your state to find out exactly how aggressive your state is at collecting unpaid child support.
Child support can be a financial problem for many divorced people. To lessen that burden, the best course of action during a divorce is for divorcing parents to be reasonable with each other and agree on an amount of support that is both helpful to the receiving parent and not overly burdensome to the paying parent.
