Our clients going through custody battles and divorces involving children, commonly ask us about child support and how it calculates.  Child support calculation depends on a number of factors.  This article will walk through the basic process of child support calculation or child support modification and how it will affect you.

Oklahoma Child Support Laws

The Oklahoma Statutes governing child support are under Title 43 §§118–120.  These define the main factors of child support, which a court will later use to make a final calculation.

– Obligor:  Person paying the support or with less visitation

– Obligee:  Person receiving the support on behalf of the child

– Gross monthly income of each party (Income before taxes and deductions)

– Statutory adjustments that may apply to the party’s income

–  Health Insurance and the monthly premium or cash payments for each child

–  Other health care costs outside of monthly payments

–  Child care expenses (daycare, babysitting, etc)

–  Shared Parenting Credit (Number of overnight stays with each parent)

All of these factors will be scrutinized by the courts in order to make a final child support calculation.  Thus, you must provide all your financial information and your child’s health care information to the courts.

How to Calculate Child Support

The Child’s Needs:

The court will now consider the other needs of the child.  These include:

– Number of children in the home

– Housing expenses

– Food expenses

– Transportation expenses between the parents regarding visitation

– Public education expense (School clothing, supplies)

– Clothing expenses, etc.

Contribution of Each Parent:

Finally, the court will take all the above factors into consideration when making a child support calculation.  At this point, the court will consider the percentage of financial contribution of each parent to the gross income surrounding the child.   So a parent who can only contribute 20% to the gross income, will only be expected to pay 20% of the child’s expenses.  The other parent will pay 80%.

Creek County Child Support Attorneys

We understand that calculating child support and child custody can be a daunting process when you attempt to do it alone.  If you have more questions about the calculation and need help, call our offices.  Your first consultation is free.