LoveToKnow Divorce:AllComments

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Rfosnot,

This LTK article will provide you with more information about Arizona Child Support.

Jodee Redmond LoveToKnow Editor

-- Contributed by: JCRedmond

Ok, my next question, my youngest son turns 18 in june. is the support supposed to stop automatically at that point or do i need to go back to court for that as well. we are in phx, az. thank you.

-- Contributed by: rfosnot

Rfosnot,

You will need to go to court to get the child support order revised due to a change in circumstances. A lawyer can draft the appropriate motion for you.

Jodee Redmond LoveToKnow Editor

-- Contributed by: JCRedmond

i have been divorced 12 and a half years and have two sons, 17 and 23. my sons moved in with me ( i am their father) in may of 2003. i continued to pay my ex-wife the child support to help her out ( no spousal maintenance, just child support) . so, she has been getting the support for over 5 years now and the kids have been with me, i mentioned to her i thought it was time to end the support but she hasn't been exactly keen on the idea. how do i go about stopping the support deductions ?

-- Contributed by: rfosnot

Jannarama,

I see what you mean; if your husband gets paid once a week or every two weeks there is an extra pay twice a year. She is right that if your husband was ordered to pay $1500 per month, that is what she should be getting. You can try showing her a breakdown of how the payments are being calculated to see if that will help her to see that she is receiving the support payments she is entitled to.

Jodee Redmond LoveToKnow Editor

-- Contributed by: JCRedmond

My husband is ordered to pay child support and spousal maint. for his exwife (child support until 5/31/21 & spouse. maint. until 11/09.)

In previous job, he was getting paid every other week. In his new job, he gets paid every week. He's ordered to pay $1500 a month. Both employers took the total amount per year ($18,000) and divided it by the # of paydays per year, (currently, 52 paydays) and sent THAT amount to the clearing house, in this case $346.15.

By using this method of computing the amount deducted from his weekly paycheck, the total amount will NEVER be $1500 a month. It's either going to be $1384.60 (4 paydays a month), or $1730.35 (5 paydays a month).

The ex-wife insists my husband has to make up the difference if it doesn't equal $1500 a month.

Is it written anywhere about the calculation of division of payments so he can SHOW HER in writing that she's going to get a set amount each week according to the formula used to subtract the amount per payday?

Thanks

-- Contributed by: Jannarama

CJ,

Your child support obligations end when your daughter turns 18. You will likely need to file a petititon for termination of child support. If you can't afford a lawyer, you may want to look into applying for Legal Aid or seeing if a community legal clinic can help. Another option is to contact the Court Clerk's office where the support order was issued to find out where to get the petition and see if you can file it yourself.

Jodee Redmond LoveToKnow Editor

-- Contributed by: JCRedmond

I am serving in the military in Colorado and my daughter who is in Arizona 18 as of Feb. I recently have found out she is not attending school on a regular basis and also pregnant. Plus I also found out she moved out of her mothers house and is living with her grandmother yet this info was obtained through, myspace. I have not had communication with her in a year when they moved. What can I do? I can't hire a lawyer because to be honest I can not afford one. I have child support in Arizona a number of times and they put me on hold and tell me I have to go to the courts with this yet I am in Colorado and about to go over seas once again. I really need to resolve this before I go. I would like to know what documents I need to file to get her school records for attendance or if she is in school. What can I do to find out where she is living? I'm perplexed. Thank you.

-- Contributed by: CJ

Alan,

I can understand your point of view. On the one hand, you wanted to support your children, but you also needed to have enough left over so that you could support yourself. Using a chart or a formula to calculate child support was supposed to make the system more fair than having a judge set an amount to be paid, but in your case it didn't work out that way.

Does anyone have suggestions for improving the system to make it more fair for non-custodial parents and their children? Post it here!

Jodee Redmond LoveToKnow Editor

-- Contributed by: JCRedmond

The Arizona Child Support system does more damage than good to families and children, paint the picture how they like, the facts are obvious. Its nothing more than an income generating machine for the state. I lost 2 jobs and evicted from 2 apartments because they took so much money out of my check each week I couldn't afford gas to get to work or money to pay my rent. How is this helping the child if they leave a non custodial parent too little money to live on? I barely made it on a full paycheck each week, take half away and after being forced to live on the streets twice now because of them I had no choice but to move to Canada. I'd rather have my child not see me at all over being able to see me living on the street homeless and jobless. Funny, I paid all the bills and we did fine when non working mother and child were living with me on the same income. Mother ran off with another guy and child and now the state calculates the cost of living (support) at an insane amount and without taking into account the person they are robbing has to live in order to be able to work and pay anything. Now there are no winners, not me, not the child, not the mother, not the state. The system needs to be fixed.

-- Contributed by: Alan Williams

Hi Jermaine,

I think that non-custodial parents sometimes get a bum rap. They may be thought of as not being as committed to parenting as the cutodial parent. In a situation where a parent has moved the child out of state, that would certainly make it much more difficult for the non-custodial parent to see his or her children. I can understand your saying that the non-custodial parent should not be penalized financially for the decision the custodial parent made.

JC Redmond LoveToKnow Editor

-- Contributed by: JCRedmond

Arizona uses the amount of time a child spends with either child. It does not state that if a child does not spend as much time with one parent as the other then the parent with less time spent is the majority payer of child support. If a parent does not have the same access to a child as the custodial parent due the the custodial parent taking the child out of state. Shouldn't that be a negative towards the custodial parent. The custodial parent now has taken the responsibility and joy of raising a child upon themselves stripping the right of the non custodial parent to be a parent. If the custodial parent removes the child from the birth state then that parent takes financial responsibility for that child. The non custodial parent should not bear the extra financial responsibility.

-- Contributed by: Jermaine
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