I am going to try to get the father of my child to pay child support. How much will he have to pay? How does that get determined?
Assuming you and the father are unable to reach an agreement on child support, a court would hear the case and decide how much child support should be paid. Texas has created guidelines to be used by courts when calculating the amount a noncustodial parent (i.e., the parent who does not have primary custody) should pay for child support. The guidelines work on a sliding scale, depending on the number of children that the noncustodial parent needs to support.
Under Texas law, if the noncustodial parent’s net monthly income is less than $6000, the amount paid for child support would be the following percentage of the monthly income:
20% for one child
25% for two children
30% for three children
35% for four children
40% for five children
not less than 40% for six children
So as an example, if the noncustodial parent has a monthly net income of $4,000 and has two children to support, the amount of monthly child support owed would be $1,000. Keep in mind that some special rules may apply in cases of split or joint placement or multiple children in different households.
In addition, courts will base child support on the father’s earning potential if the father is not making as much money as he could. So if the father were an investment banker who decided to quit and take a job that paid only a fraction of his banker’s salary, the court will use the income that he could potentially earn (the banker’s salary) to determine the adequate amount of monthly child support payments.
This article appears in September 30 • 2005.