Child Support in Texas: Things You Need to Know

If you are going through a divorce, you may have a lot of questions regarding child support and how that will affect your post-divorce finances.

Child support in Texas is determined using a formula with minimums and maximums in place.

Considerations

Policymakers in Texas have determined it is in the public interest that non-custodial parents meet their obligation of supporting each of their children.

In making this determination, the law considers whether a parent:

• Is self-employed or an employee
• Provides health insurance and/or dental insurance for the child
• Pays union dues and/or state income taxes
• Supports multiple children via child support payments

The Formula

The basic formula starts with the payor’s Monthly Gross Income.[1]?From that, OASDI,[2]?Medicare,[3]?and estimated Federal Income Tax withholding are deducted.

This generates the payor’s estimated Monthly Income.

From the payor’s Monthly Income, the formula then deducts any amounts they are paying for Medical Support, Dental Support, Union Dues, and State Income Tax.[4]?This generates the payor’s Net Resources.

The minimum is 20% (for one child), and the maximum is 40% for five children or more.[5]

Child support guidelines are specifically designed to apply to no more than $9,200 of Monthly Net Resources.

A non-custodial parent is not expected to pay more than 40% of their Monthly Net Resources in child support.?

Estimating Child Support

The Texas Attorney General’s office has a?Monthly Child Support Calculator?that you can use to estimate how much you may need to pay or how much you may receive in child support.

The information you will need is:

1. Employment status of the non-custodial parent (employed or self-employed)
2. Income frequency (hourly, weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, or annually)
3. Gross income for each period (hourly, weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, or annually)
4. The monthly amount the non-custodial parent will pay in Medical Support, Dental Support, Union Dues, and/or State Income Tax
5. The number of children for the case in question
6. The number of children total that the non-custodial parent supports.?

Be aware that child support payments may end in the event of the payor quitting their job, being fired, or dying.

Child support also generally ends when a child turns 18 or graduates from high school, whichever is later.

Child support is only ordered where one parent has primary custody and the other parent visits less than 50% of the time.

Navigating your?post-divorce life?comes with a host of unknowns.

But the amount of child support you may receive (or pay) doesn’t have to be one of them.

Book a Free One-hour Consultation with me if you need help navigating your post divorce finances.

If you are interested in learning more about child support in Texas, check out my original post here.

Fact-checking for this article kindly provided by Candace Demary of The Law Office of Candace B. Demary, PLLC.

Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc is not affiliated with Candace Demary or The Law Office of Candace B. Demary, PLLC.

[1] This is the amount of wages before taxes or other pre-tax expenses.

[2] OASDI stands for Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance. This is more commonly known as Social Security, and is a tax of 6.2% applied to the first $137,700 of income a taxpayer earns.

[3] 1.4% tax applied to all wages.

[4] If the payor lives in a state with a state income tax.

[5] One child, no less than 20%; two children, no less than 25%; three children, no less than 30%; four children, no less than 35%; five children, no less than 40%; more than five children, no more than 40%.