Understanding Child Support in Texas

Find out how to calculate child support in Texas and how a support award can be modified or terminated.

The Noncustodial Parent Pays Child Support

In Texas, physical custody—meaning, the amount of time a parent spends with a child—determines who will make child support payments. Although a court could order either or both parents to support a child, in most cases the “noncustodial parent,” the parent with the least amount of time with the child (or children), pays child support. The parent who pays support is referred to as the “obligor.”

The payment amount is based on a percentage of the noncustodial parent’s income. You can estimate how much your child support payments will be by using Texas’ child support guidelines, which are simply a fee schedule.

While parents are free to pay more than the guideline amount, they can’t agree between themselves to pay less. In any event, a court must approve the payments. Also, there are circumstances where the result given by the guidelines would be unfair to a parent or the child. In those cases, a court will review a set of factors and may adjust the amount of support up or down.

Just because one parent tends to pay child support, that doesn’t mean that the other parent is off the hook for the costs of raising a child. Instead, the law assumes that the custodial parent spends the money directly on the child. In other words, the custodial parent automatically pays child support through the daily cost of raising the child.

How to Use the Texas Child Support Guidelines

Calculating the amount of child support from the guidelines is a straightforward process, once you know the non-custodial parent’s net monthly income. To determine net monthly income, you first take all available income and then make specific deductions, explained below.

Gross Income

For child support purposes, income includes all wages, salary, commissions, military pay, tips, overtime, and bonuses. Even if unemployed, the paying parent probably still has income in the form of severance, retirement, unemployment benefits, and/or from Social Security or workers’ compensation awards. Income also includes gifts, prizes, and alimony, among other things. If a parent collects income from a property, then add in the net rental income as well.

Additionally, a court may assign an income value to assets that do not currently produce income, like a second house or car, if it’s appropriate to do so. For example, a parent may not have a job but could have received property in an inheritance. In cases like this, if the asset—say a vacation home bequeathed from grandma’s will—can be liquidated (sold), then a court will consider its market value as part of income.

Likewise, in situations where a parent is purposefully unemployed or underemployed to avoid making support payments, then a court can impute (attribute) income to that parent based on what he or she should be earning.

Net Income

Once the figure for gross income is set, subtract the following (also computed annually):

• Social Security taxes or, if the paying parent doesn’t pay Social Security taxes, any mandatory retirement plan contributions
• federal income tax (based on the tax rate for a single person claiming one exemption)
• union dues
• health insurance premiums and other medical expenses for the child(ren) if the court ordered the paying parent to pay these expenses.

The resulting figure is the parent’s annual net income. Divide the net income by 12 to establish monthly net income. For a complete list of what to include and what to leave out, see Texas Family Code Section 154.062 (2020).

Finally, for parents who already pay child support for another child or children, they can take a credit for those payments, which would be subtracted from net income before applying the guidelines. To find out more on how to do this, see the Texas Family Code Sections 154.128 and 129 (2020).

In addition to the support amount determined by the guidelines, the parents will also have to cover the child’s health insurance.

Number of Children Requiring Support

Once you’ve established the noncustodial parent’s net monthly income, multiply that number by a percentage that’s determined by how many children the paying parent is supporting.

• 1 child = multiply the monthly net income by 20%
• 2 children = multiply the monthly net income by 25%
• 3 children = multiply the monthly net income by 30%
• 4 children = multiply the monthly net income by 35%
• 5 children = multiply the monthly net income by 40%
• For 6 or more children, the amount must be at least the same as for five children

In addition to the support amount determined by the guidelines, the parents will also have to cover the child’s health insurance. While there is a presumption that the noncustodial parent will provide this benefit, that responsibility can easily shift to the other parent if it makes more sense. For example, the custodial parent may provide the child’s insurance if this parent’s employer provides health insurance while the noncustodial parent lacks coverage.

Incidentally, the percentages above are used for net monthly income up to $7,500 a month. For income above $7,500, a court may increase the amount of support depending on the income of both parents and the child’s needs. The law does not have a minimum amount of child support that must be paid, but families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or certain other federal benefits like Medicaid should automatically receive child support services from Texas’s Attorney General’s Office.

Challenging the Amount of Support

A court presumes that the guideline support amount is appropriate. Sometimes, however, the amount given by the guidelines is unfair and doesn’t serve a child’s best interests. If you think child support should be decreased or increased before a court issues the order, then you can ask the court to adjust it. Once you ask, a court will review all relevant factors, but especially the following, to adjust the amount of child support either up or down:

• the age and needs of the child
• the parents’ ability to support the child
• financial resources and debts
• the time the child spends with each parent
• the receiving parent’s net resources
• child care expenses
• the managing conservatorship (legal custody)
• alimony payments
• post-secondary education expenses
• whether either parent has additional employment benefits like housing or a company car
• other wage deductions
• the provision of health insurance
• extraordinary expenses like those for education or health care
• costs of the child’s travel between parents, and
• any cash flow from property or other assets.

Collecting Child Support in Texas

Establishing child support is only half the battle, you’ll also need to collect support. A noncustodial parent must pay the full amount of support each month as ordered. If your order doesn’t specify otherwise, a parent can pay child support in the form of cash, check, bank transfer, direct deposit, Zelle, or Venmo.

Changing a Texas Child Support Order

Once a child support order is in place, you can still ask a court or the Texas Attorney General’s Office (via the Child Support Review Process or CSRP) to review it at any time if either parent experiences a material and substantial change in circumstances.

Usually, a substantial change is a significant shift in custody, job loss, or international relocation, but there can be other reasons. The threshold is lower if an order has been in place for three years or more.

You can read more about this in the Child Support section of the Texas Attorney General’s Office website.

Source: www.divorcenet.com