Calculating Child Support With A New Spouse

When calculating child support, it is not uncommon for one or both of the ex-spouses to have a new significant other or even a new spouse. When that happens, one of the first questions the parents have is about calculating child support with a new spouse or significant other.

Specifically, “will the income of my new spouse or significant other be used to calculate child support?” The answer to that question is “no, yes, and sort of”.

Obviously, some might find that answer a bit confusing. Here’s how it works:
 

Calculating Child Support With A New Spouse

In years past, courts would calculate child support by considering the income of a parent’s new spouse or nonmarital partner to the extent that such income reduced or eliminated the expenses of the parent, and, thus increased the disposable income available to calculate child support. That is no longer automatically allowed.

Now when calculating child support, the courts cannot directly consider the income of a parent’s new spouse or significant other, except under very specific circumstances deemed “extraordinary circumstances”.
 

Extraordinary Circumstances

An extraordinary circumstance occurs when the court finds that to exclude such income would lead to an “extreme and severe hardship” for the child.

The two most common situations that occur to create extraordinary circumstances, and thus necessitate calculating child support with a new spouse and his or her income in the equation, are:

1. A parent has voluntarily quit working or reduced their income
2. A parent that intentionally remains unemployed or underemployed

When either or both of the above situations occur, a court will likely consider them to be extraordinary circumstances and find that calculating child support with a new spouse income taken into consideration is warranted.

The most common real-world scenario is when a child’s parent or parents remarry a new spouse with a substantial income and decides not to work at all or very little.

In this situation, the parent is avoiding his or her statutory obligation of earning income to support their children. To calculate child support in this situation, the court can impute an income to the parent at an amount of his or her ability to earn.

While the use or cost savings to a parent due to the high income or wealth of a new spouse or mate is not automatically applied to calculate child support obligations, if the court finds that there is an extraordinary circumstance that would lead to an “extreme and severe hardship” for the child, the court can apply the new spouse or mate income when calculating child support with a new spouse involved.