Using the Arizona Child Support Calculator

When first looking at the child support calculator there is a space for Petitioner and Respondent’s names, the Petitioner is the party who first filed the original matter. For the purposes of the child support calculation there is no advantage or difference between the two.

The calculator next asks for Child Details. The first drop-down box asks about the time-sharing arrangement. One of the most important factors for child support is the amount of time each party has with the minor child. The more parenting time you have with the child the more expenses you incur and the guidelines take that into consideration. The parenting time arrangement can be agreed to by the parties in a stipulation or will be ordered by the Court after a final determination has been made. One of the many benefits of having an experienced family law attorney from The Cantor Law Group represent you in your family law matter is that the attorneys will aggressively advocate for the parenting time arrangement that is in your child’s best interest. The Courts in Arizona will consider a list of factors when determining parenting time and custody. Trying to navigate that path unrepresented can lead to unforeseen pitfalls, especially when the opposing party has retained an attorney who is familiar with procedures and relevant law. The matter before the Court will need to include Parenting Time, as a Petition to establish Paternity and Child Support will not determine parenting time.

After entering the time-sharing arrangement the calculator will ask you to input your children’s names and dates of birth that are common to you and the opposing party. You would not input children from another relationship; this will be accounted for later. The date of birth is relevant as there is a 10% increase in child support for a child over the age of 12, given the increasing costs of raising a teenager. In addition, this will consider that typically the support obligation will end when the minor child reaches the age of 18. There are some exceptions, including if the child is still in high school, but under the age of 19 or if the child has mental or physical disabilities.

The next factor to be considered on this calculator is the income of the parties. The first line will require real or estimated knowledge of both parties income. This can be calculated by hourly wage, monthly income, or yearly income and uses the gross income of the parties. Any Court-ordered spousal maintenance paid or received by the parties will affect the calculator, regardless if the maintenance is to or from the opposing party. The next factor the calculator will determine is if there are other child support obligations that have been court-ordered, or if there are other natural or adopted children for which there is no court-ordered support.

The calculator should now have the information needed to determine the adjusted gross monthly income of both parties, and what the basic child support obligation should be for the child or children. While inputting what you believe to be both parties gross income is one of the easier tasks in this exercise, determining the actual gross incomes of the parties and proving that to the court can be a much more difficult task. There are occasions where a party has a cash business and their tax returns do not accurately represent their income, or the person has recently quit a high paying job in an effort to thwart future obligations. The attorneys at The Cantor Law Group have had great success using the discovery process to determine the real gross income of opposing parties who are self-employed or have cash businesses. The Cantor Law Group will, where appropriate, aggressively advocate that the Court impute the income that the opposing party should reasonably be earning in the case they resign from a higher paying job, accept a lower paying position, or are currently unemployed.

Petition for a Modification of Child Support

There are currently a significant amount of child support orders from the past ten years that do not accurately reflect the financial situations of the parties. As the payor it is your responsibility to petition for a modification of child support. Given the current financial climate many people are earning significantly less than when their child support was ordered through no unreasonable conduct of their own. The child support order is modifiable if there has been a significant and ongoing change regarding the finances of a party. The attorney’s at The Cantor Law Group can help determine if you could qualify for a modification.
How the parties’ gross income is determined is one of the most important factors in the child support you will pay or receive. Having an experienced family law attorney guide you through this process and advocate for you and your children can help ensure that all of the relevant factors will be addressed. The cost of incorrectly determining a child support obligation can be financially crippling.
The next set of factors the Court will use are the necessary additions to the basic support. This will consider the upward adjustment for any child over the age of 12, the cost of medical, dental, and vision insurance paid by either party, the monthly childcare costs for the children, extra educational expenses paid, and extraordinary expenses paid for children who are gifted or handicapped. It should be noted that the cost of the insurance premiums should be for the children in common only, not to include the parties themselves.
Finally, the calculator will account for any arrears payments, and will then determine the party to pay the child support and the amount.
A Court has the discretion to deviate from the Child Support Guidelines; however, historically a significant deviation is unlikely without a showing of good cause.

Get Legal Advice

The purpose of this calculator is informational and educational only and does not constitute legal advice. The amount of child support a court will order for any particular case may be different from the amount estimated by the calculator. The court has the final authority to determine the amount of child support awarded. The amount yielded by this calculator is only an estimate and is not a guarantee of the amount of child support that will be awarded. All of the factors listed above are relevant to the Child Support Calculations and this Summary is not meant to be an exhaustive list of the relevant facts or factors in determining child support in accordance with the guidelines. This summary is meant to inform parties of the major factors in determining child support and some of the complex issues that can arise, as well as a guide to using the child support calculator.

To determine the relevant factors for your matter, and to obtain legal advice regarding child support please consult one of the experienced Family Law attorneys at The Cantor Law Group. Call 24/7 602-254-8880.

Arizona Divorce Attorneys

The Cantor Law Group enjoys an excellent reputation throughout the Legal Community because of our aggressiveness, integrity, honesty, and professionalism. We pride ourselves in obtaining the best results for our clients and being rated as some of the best Divorce Attorneys in Arizona. We also understand that an Arizona divorce can be a difficult situation for your family but we’re here to help you get the best outcome. Many Arizona Divorce attorneys claim to be aggressive yet they fail to follow through, but the Cantor Law Group truly is Beyond Aggressive!!

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At the initial court hearing, the parties agreed to joint legal custody and equal parenting time under a 5-2-2-5 plan. Subsequently, Mother changed her mind and sought primary custody, requesting that Father have limited parenting time of an after school visit and every other weekend. Mother refused to relent, going so far as to request the appointment of a mental health expert to conduct a custody evaluation. [Cantor Law Group] attorney successfully convinced the Court to deny this motion.

At trial, Father requested that the Court continue the 5-2-2-5 parenting plan as in the children’s best interest and to maximize his current and future involvement in the children’s lives. Mother continued to seek primary custody with limited parenting time for Father, going so far as to claim Father’s outside activities such as golf impacted his worthiness for the parenting time he was requesting.

The [Cantor Law Group] attorney successfully convinced the Court to enter an Order of an EQUAL ACCESS parenting plan as most appropriate. The Court noted that Mother had not overcome the burden of Arizona’s public policy to promote strong families and strong family values.

Father was elated that he will be able to continue to be a 50-50 parent.

Hollywood is not the only industry peddling the story line that flesh-and-blood fathers are an optional accessory in today’s families. Plenty of academics from New York University sociologist Judith Stacey to Cornell psychologist Peggy Drexler also have been arguing that mothers can do just as well raising children with donor fathers as they can with real ones.

In her book, “Raising Boys Without _ Men,” for instance, Ms. Drexler claims & that “maverick moms,” including single women who rely on donor insemination, are just as successful raising boys as mothers who opt for the older model of marriage and motherhood. All that is needed for parental success, according to Ms. Drexler, is a “caring and supportive” model of mothering.

Until recently, there was one primary chal­lenge to the intellectually fashionable view that fathers are fungible. It came from scholarship showing that children did better—e.g., were much more likely to finish school, avoid teen pregnancy and stay out of prison—in intact, mar­ried families than in homes headed by a single parent, most of whom are women.

Yet scholars such as Ms. Drexler were able to retort that much of the research relies on a com­parison of middle-class married families with poor single mothers, so that differences in how children fare might be largely the result of socio­economic differences. In their view, middle-class women who have a decent income and a good education can do just as good a job as a middle-class married mother and father.

That view ran into some major trouble this month, with the release of the report, “My Name is Donor,” by the Commission on Parenthood’s Future (of which I am a member). The report is the first study to compare a large random sample of 485 young adults (18-45) con­ceived through donor insemination to 563 young adults conceived the old-fashioned way.

Significantly, the single women who chose to have a child by donor insemination were better-educated and slightly better off than the parents who had biological children together. So the study’s results cannot be dismissed on the grounds that affluent marrieds were being com­pared to poor single mothers.

The study, which was co-authored by Eliza­beth Marquardt, Norval Glenn and Karen Clark, paints a troubling portrait of the children con­ceived by single mothers who chose donor in­semination. Young adults with maverick moms and donor dads report a sense of confusion, loss and distress about their origins and identity, and about their inability to relate to their biological father and to his kin.

Seventy-one percent of the adult offspring of these single mothers agree that: “My sperm do­nor is half of who I am,” and 78% wonder “what my sperm donor’s family is like.” Half report that they “feel sad” when they see “friends with their biological fathers and mothers.” Donor offspring with single mothers also are much less likely toreport that they can rely on their family. Fifty-six percent of these offspring said they depend more on friends than on family, compared to just 29% of young adults born to two biological parents. The study’s findings echo recent commentary from young adults conceived through donor in semination. Writing in the Washington Post a few years ago, Katrina Clark reported that she envied friends who had both a mother and a father. “That was” when the emptiness came over me. I realized that I am, in a sense, a freak. I really, truly would never have a dad. I finally understood what it meant to be donor-conceived, and I ’”^         hated it.”

In the U.K., Tom Ellis recently decided to try to find his donor dad through a registry that attempts to connect children to their biological fathers. Without him, he told a reporter, “I will never feel whole.”

Such a sense of loss may help explain why the study found that adult offspring of single-mothers-by-choice were 177% more likely to report having had trouble with drugs and alcohol than children born to two biological  parents. Perhaps in part because they did not enjoy the love, discipline and example of a flesh-and-blood father, young adults conceived through donor insemination to a single mother were also 146% more likely to report having been “in trouble with the law” be­fore age 25.

So, despite the latest propaganda in favor of a father-optional future, this study suggests two stubborn truths: Children long to know and be known by their biological fathers, and they are much more likely to thrive when they have their own father in their lives.

On this Father’s Day, men who have managed to be good flesh-and-blood fathers to their chil­dren should take some satisfaction from the find­ings found in “My Daddy’s Name is Donor.” Even if the Big Screen portrays them as superfluous, in the real world, their kids are much more likely to turn out “all right” than kids who only know their daddy as Donor.

Mr. Wilcox is director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and a member of the Commission on Parenthood’s Future.