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How Child Support Payments Are Calculated In Maryland, set guidelines must be used in calculating how much child support a non-custodial parent must pay. The Child Support Calculator uses these set guidelines to help you calculate support. Maryland’s guidelines attempt to estimate the percentage of income that parents would spend on children if the parents were living in the same household. Maryland’s guidelines use the following steps to determine a child support obligation: 1. Each parent’s actual monthly income is determined. If a parent is not working and has no other form of income, the court can still assign income if it finds that the parent has the ability to work. Each parent’s actual or assigned income can sometimes be reduced by the parent’s other child support or alimony obligations or the parent’s costs of providing health insurance for a child. 2. Both parents’ incomes or potential incomes are added together. This combined number is used to determine from the guidelines a basic child support obligation for the combined income. 3. The non-custodial parent is then obligated to pay a percentage share of the combined income to the custodial parent. If the parents share custody, the amount of the child support obligation may be less. 4. A court can also order that the non-custodial parent pay an additional amount for certain medical, school, transportation and day care expenses and for health insurance for a child. Can Child Support Be Lower than the Guidelines? It is very difficult to get child support set at a lower amount than the guideline calculation. To do so, the non-custodial parent must convince the court why following the guidelines would be unjust or inappropriate and why a lower amount of child support is in the child’s best interests. For example, a non-custodial parent may need to lower the amount of support to allow more time to get training or education for a more stable income. Source: Legal Aid Bureau Last Legal Review 8/00 (LAB) |
