In 2016, Illinois lawmakers completed the overhaul of the child support statute and changed the way support is calculated. They have abandoned a straight percentage of the obligor’s income (parent paying the child support) and have implemented a formula based upon three factors to calculate base child support. These are the income of mom, the income of dad and the amount of overnights with the minor child/ren. In general, to calculate the base child support, the combined net income from both parents is applied to the income shares schedule that is laid out in the statute to find the basic support obligation of the parents combined. The statue does allow for deviations from the guideline support in certain circumstances, like when a child has a disability or special needs.
The court may add other expenses to the support obligation like childcare expenses, school, extracurricular and/or healthcare expenses to obtain a total support obligation per month. Once that total obligation is calculated, the next step in the formula is to apply each parent’s contribution to the total obligations for the minor/s. Each parent will be assigned a percentage based upon their contribution to the total income.
The next step is applying the same percentage of your income contribution to the total child support obligation to obtain each parent’s individual contribution required for the minor/s.
The overnights with the minor/s become a large factor in the calculation with the parent with the lesser overnights has 40% of overnights per year, 146. Once that occurs, it is considered shared parenting and the formula then takes each parents obligation and multiples it by the percentage of overnights per year that the respective parent has.
Once their new obligations are calculated, the formula then takes the parent with the higher obligation and subtracts the parent with the lesser obligation from it and the result will be the obligor’s monthly child support payment.
If the parents have multiple children and do a split parenting plan, which means each parent will have majority of time with a different children, the formula will calculate the support for each child individually then offset one child’s support with the other and the one parent with an obligation remaining will pay the difference to the other parent as their monthly child support obligation.
However, in some instances one parent does not wish to collect child support from the other parent. While the law does not allow for a waiver of child support, as it is the minor’s right not the parent's, the courts do allow for a reservation of child support that would allow it to be modified in the future under the right circumstances.
A modification of child support can take place in two circumstances, it is always able to be reviewed after two years have lapsed. The other is a substantial change in circumstances, like an involuntary job loss or a change in majority of parenting time.
No matter your unique circumstances that lead you to child support, contact Polcyn McHugh Law to help guide you through the process to ensure a fair and the best possible outcome for you.
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