Where Did All This Child Support Come From, Anyway? – Family Law Software

In every one of the fifty states, lawyers are required to submit a child support computation, whether it is strictly followed or whether a variance is granted.

So, just where did this mandatory child support calculation come from, anyway?

In the mid to late 1980s, data started coming out of the US Census Bureau that illustrated the correlation between poverty, single-parent households, and child support orders. Leaving the award of child support up to judges was not resulting in adequate support for children, and more and more single parents were applying to the federal government for welfare assistance.

The legislative history goes back to 1974, when Congress passed the “Family Support Act” as an amendment to the Social Security Act, making it mandatory for states receiving Aid for Dependent Children to establish and enforce child support obligations. Ten years later, Congress enacted the Child Support Enforcement Amendments, which spread the child support formula and enforcement to all families, not just those receiving public assistance. The year after that, in 1988, Congress mandated that by 1994, all states create a formula that would be a rebuttable presumptive in its computation of child support.

The bottom line for you as a family law attorney is that you need legal software with a powerful child support calculator for every case involving an unemancipated child. And, when you're deep into negotiations for divorce settlements , you'll want to be in a position to calculate child support and alimony, and determine whether to shift some of the child support into alimony payments to gain an income tax deduction.

Easy Soft offers the line of legal software products you need. For divorce settlements , select our “ Divorce Settlement Software ,” which can be used in all 50-states. Add specialized software if you are calculating child support for NY , need a PA support calculator or an AZ child support calculator , or you are in NJ, using the case information statement .

You've had since at least 1994 to automate your child support calculations through legal software . We've been waiting for you to come along since 1986. Don't you think it's time that we got together?

The Self-Support Reserve Computation? Easy!

Every state has a mandatory formula for the computation of child support. You're a legal professional; you know there are exceptions to every rule. Do you know what the “self-support reserve” exception is to a strict computation of child support?

Unfortunately, in today's economy, every family law attorney needs to be familiar with the “self-support reserve,” the floor below which a child support variance would become appropriate. If you represent someone who has lost there job and is surviving on government benefits, you need to know this figure. If you represent a child support claimant, you need to not be caught unaware of an impending argument for a variance on this basis.

The federal government annually releases the “poverty guidelines,” defining the poverty rate, based upon household size. In 2011, the poverty guideline for a single person was $10,890/year. States set their “self-support reserve” as a multiplier of the federal poverty guidelines.

For example, let's say you're computing child support for NY . NY set its “self-support reserve” at 135% of the federal poverty guidelines. For a child support payor, alone in a household, the self-support reserve would be $10,890 x 135% or $14,702.

If you're using the NY child support calculator in the “EzSupport-NY” legal software , you can save yourself the steps of keeping track of the federal government annual poverty announcements, checking for the affiliated state updates, and remembering to apply the self-support reserve each time you make a child support calculation. Use Easy Soft law office software to increase your productivity and ensure your accuracy.

With Easy Soft's family law software , if a payor's income is at or below the self-support reserve, you will receive a computer-generated alert that says “Low income adjustment applicable,” along with detailed notices such as “more than the poverty level $10,890 but less than self-support reserve $14,702.”

Whether you are calculating child support as part of a divorce settlements or part of a modification or enforcement proceeding, let Easy Soft's legal software automate your calculations and generate needed alerts.

After all, don't you already have enough to do in each case without having to remember every figure on your own?