“You may wonder how much child support will I pay ?”  Louisiana has “Child Support Guidelines”, which sets forth the monthly child support amount depending on the gross income of both parents and the number of children.  The concept for the guidelines is that the children should not suffer from the breakup of the parents and the children should enjoy the same lifestyle they would have had if the parents were to remain together.  Thus, the income of both parents is taken into consideration and the child support increases as the level of combined income increases.  The parents share the guideline amount in proportion to their own income.

For example, if the children live with the mother and the father earns $50,000.00 and the mother earns $25,000.00, the father will pay the mother 2/3rds of the guideline amount (parents combined income is $75,000.00 and the father’s $50,000.00 is 2/3 of that amount).

The basic monthly child support covers food and shelter.  Other expenses, such as health insurance, daycare, uninsured medical expenses (medical expenses not covered by insurance), are also shared by the parent in their proportional share.

It is important that you have an attorney when child support is being assessed because once there is a court order for child support there needs to be a change in circumstances to modify that order.  If you go to court without an attorney and do not agree with the outcome, you cannot get it changed simply because you did not have an attorney at that time.

There are many factors that affect child support, suspension of child support and certain instances, when child support ends.  Please contact our office if you need an attorney for a child support matter.