Lesser Known Things About The Guidelines Part II

The Child Support Guidelines Task Force which was the committee responsible for drafting the changes to the Massachusetts child support guidelines effective January 1, 2009 made the recommended changes to recognize the number of cases involving never-married parents, growing numbers of primary caretakers employed outside of the home, increased shared parental arrangements and increased parental involvement by the principal economic provider. Any calculation of the guidelines has to reflect these recommendations and goals in implementing the new Guidelines.

Many of the changes were made to clarify or to simplify language used in the prior version of the Guidelines. For example, the terms "custody" and "visitation" have been eliminated as they no longer reflect the roles of many parents in the lives of their children. The Paragraph titled "Relationship to Alimony or Separate Maintenance Payments" has been revised to eliminate confusion but the intent to allow the characterization of some or all of the child support payments as alimony remains the same.

There are two new paragraphs that explain how to calculate child support orders for families who share physical custody of their children. In these split custody situations, the parties run the Guidelines twice, one with the parent as the Payee (recipient of income) and one with the other parent as the Payee. The difference between these two figures is the amount to be paid to the parent with the lower weekly support amount.

Contact rauseolaw for further clarification of the Guidelines or for a free consultation.