I need help modifying child support. Can you help?
Full Question:
Answer:
Parents have a legal and moral duty to maintain, protect and educate their children. When parents live apart, the state has an interest in seeing to it that parents, not the public, provide for their children. This obligation continues while the child is a minor. Courts have a duty to set child support. The obligation to pay child support only rests with the child's natural or adoptive parents, not step-parents.
Since 1987, Oklahoma has had child support guidelines. The statutory guidelines determine the amounts of support that parents at particular family income levels are presumed to spend on their children. Child support calculated under the guidelines is presumed by law to be the correct amount of child support.
In Oklahoma, the first step is to determine each parent's adjusted gross income and add the numbers together to arrive at combined gross monthly family income. Gross income can be calculated one of several ways, including:
1. actual monthly income, or income equivalent to a forty-hour work week (overtime may or may not be included as the court deems equitable);
2. average monthly income while employed during the previous three (3) years;
3. minimum wage paid for a forty-hour work week, or;
4. imputed monthly income for a person with comparable education, training and experience.
The Oklahoma Child Support Guideline Schedule is used to determine the parents' base child support. The schedule is based on the combined income of both parents and the number of children in the household. Each parent's percentage share of the combined gross monthly family income sets that parent's percentage share of the base child support obligation. The parent who is not the primary custodian of the child generally becomes the "obligor," and pays the primary custodian his or her share of the base support.