The basic child support formula
The basic formula applies to parents with one child support assessment and no other dependent children. This is the formula we use for most child support assessments.
The eight steps of the basic formula are:
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We calculate each parent’s child support income, which is a parent’s adjusted taxable income minus the self-support amount.
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We add both parents’ child support incomes together to get a combined child support income.
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We divide each parent’s individual child support income by the combined child support income to get an income percentage.
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We work out each parent’s care percentage of the child.
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We work out the cost percentage of the child.
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We subtract the cost percentage from the income percentage for each parent. The result is called the child support percentage.
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If it’s a negative percentage, that parent may receive child support because their share of the costs of children is being more than met by the amount of care they are providing.
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If it’s a positive percentage, that parent needs to pay child support because they aren’t meeting their entire share of the costs of the child directly through care. We go on to steps seven and eight using only the positive child support percentage.
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Note: If you have different care arrangements for various children, you might have different child support percentages for each child.
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We work out the costs for each child based on the parents’ combined child support income.
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We get the final child support payable by multiplying the positive child support percentage by the costs of the child. This final figure is the child support amount the paying parent needs to transfer to the other parent.
See an example of the basic formula.
If you would like to estimate your child support payments, you can access the child support calculator and worksheets here.