Child Support Arrears
The software includes a module for very precise child support arrears calculations for virtually any situation. You can find it on the Analysis tab. The calculation is general in that it can handle any type of arrears: child support arrears, spousal support arrears, or any other situation in which interest is charged for late payments. […]
Family Law Software Alimony Formula
Family Law Software has created its own proprietary alimony calculator. This calculator synthesizes the best of several sources, including: What did we come up with? The basic calculation takes 30% of the payer’s income and subtracts 20% of the recipient’s income, creating a formula like that of many states’ calculators. Then it adds the following […]
Balance Incomes
This calculator aims to set alimony at a level that results in a fair split of the parties’ after-tax incomes. This calculator looks at both parties, and their relationships to one another. Here’s how it works: It starts by calculating the after-tax income of both parties. That is, it takes each party’s gross income and […]
Support What If
This screen allows you to ask “what if” with the child support guideline calculation. You can ask, for example: The screen opens initially with a column of actual key numbers from the child support guideline. To create a “what if” column, click the button at the top labeled “add scenario.” The new scenario will appear […]
Best Filing Status
This screen shows you the best filing status the parties could choose for Federal Income Tax purposes. For filing status purposes, what usually matters is whether the parties are married at the end of the calendar year. If the parties are married at the end of the calendar year, they may file a joint return, […]
Alimony After-Tax
The screen may also be called Spousal After Tax, or Maintenance after Tax, depending on what term is most common in your state. This screen calculates the after-tax cost of alimony. For agreements entered into during and after 2019, the after-tax cost of alimony will be the same as the pretax cost of alimony. In […]
Meet Recipient Need & Balance Incomes
These two screens represent two sensible, rational ways to calculate a fair alimony amount. As such, they can be a very valuable tools in the negotiation process. General Approach The general approach is that you specify a target (either in dollars or percents), and the software tells how much alimony is needed in order to […]
More Alimony Tools
This screen provides links to a number of tools that rarely apply. They are all helpful only if alimony is deductible to the payer and included in the income of the recipient. This has not been the case at the federal level since 2019, and so very few alimony orders today have any tax impact. […]
Best Exemptions
This screen shows the best party to claim the tax exemptions for the children. By “best party,” we mean the party who, if he or she claims the exemptions, minimizes the combined tax liability of the two parties. Since the claim of exemption has no impact in the real world other than its impact on […]
Pension Plans
The pensions on the screen are the same as the pensions that you would enter on the Assets & Liabilities screen. We have just repeated that asset on its own screen in order to highlight the software’s ability to value defined benefit pensions. When you enter the information at the top level, please be sure […]