California Divorce Law...

Under federal law each state has established a mathematical formula for calculating child support. (Click here to read why and here for an overview of these formulas.)

The courts tend to follow these formulas pretty closely. (Click here for more on this.)

This screen will give a brief overview of the California Child Support Guidelines.

Not surprisingly, California probably has the most complicated Child Support Guideline calculation in the nation. The reason is that the California legislature seems to be the most relentlessly bent on fairness, the most thoughtful about how to achieve it, and the most willing to assume that every lawyer has access to a computer to perform the calculation.

Key factors in the child support payments in California include:

• The higher-income parent's net income. The higher this is, the higher is the support obligation.
• The lower-income parent's net income. The higher this is, the lower is the support obligation -- but only if the higher income parent spends some time with the child. If the higher income parent spends no time with the child, then the lower-income parent's income does not matter.
• The percent of the children's time that is spent with the higher-income parent. The impact of this, though, is complicated.
• The number of children. The more children, the higher is overall child support. The biggest percentage increase comes from 1 to 2 children, where total support increases approximately 60% for the second child. Each child after that continues to increases support. But the increments decline. The incremental increase for the 10'th child is less than half a percent.

Sections 4050 - 4076.

Cases:

Dacumos (1999) 76 Cal.App.4th 150.

For purposes of gross income for the child support calculation, the court found that hypothetical rental income, not actually received, could be counted.

The husband earned $9,400 a year as a legal assistant, but he had two rental properties. His ownership interest in those properties totaled between $200,000 to $250,000.

The husband had been renting the properties at a loss, and the court concluded that he could have rented the properties for more than he did. (It is not clear why the husband had been renting the properties at a loss or how the court concluded that he could have rented them for more.)

The California law allows a court to consider "earning capacity" in counting hypothetical income that is not actually earned, for the child support calculation. This prevents payers from becoming suddenly unemployed around the time child support is calculated.

But this court stretched the definition of "earning capacity" to cover not only payment the husband could have received for work, but also payment he could have received on his rental property.

For the wife, the court went the other way, excluding from the calculation income she actually earned at a second job. The court's reasoning was that the wife worked at the second job only because the husband was failing to pay his child support obligations.

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