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Support Schedule Altered Without Court Order

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  • 10-18-2012, 08:57 AM
    Novice
    Support Schedule Altered Without Court Order
    My question involves child support in the State of: NJ

    I pay child support for my daughter under two separate orders - one Order was established as a weekly obligation for regular support and one Order was established as a monthly obligation for day care. The weekly obligation has been in effect for several years, and the monthly obligation was newly ordered for before and after school care costs this year. I have two questions:

    1) The NJ shared parenting support guidelines appear to allow for a credit to the PAR for child care cost paid. My regular support order was established with no such credit afforded me, since the child care order did not exist at the time of last regular support modification. Should the new, separate obligation for day care be included as a credit to my regular support at this point? The line item for the credit I'm questioning is line 22 on the worksheet linked below. I do receive the credit on line 23 for health care premium paid, because that was established in my original order for regular support.

    http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/csguide/ix-d.pdf


    2) When the Probation department implemented the new order for the day care obligation, they did so incorrectly and entered the monthly amount as a weekly obligation, while completely deleting the weekly obligation. After a number of calls to the Child Support payment center, I finally managed to have them update all of the correct support dollar amounts in their system, however in the course of doing so, they have now created a single monthly obligation. My question is, is the Probation dept./allowed to update my regular support obligation from weekly to monthly, without an Order from the Court? The $ amount is the same in the end, but I now owe money sooner each month than I had as established by the Court Order.
  • 10-20-2012, 08:32 AM
    Mr. Knowitall
    Re: Support Schedule Altered Without Court Order
    Child support and additional child care expenses are separate issues. You appear to be asking whether for each dollar you pay toward care expenses your support should be reduced by a dollar. No, that's not how it works.

    If you were ordered in the divorce judgment to pay for health insurance, then that's what the order provides. If you believe that the support order was miscalculated based upon your wages and the premiums deducted therefrom, you can seek a review. Some states limit how often reviews are permitted.

    The probation department prepared a new income withholding order, which presumably was signed by the judge. Take a look at your copy of the order. Signed by the judge?
  • 10-22-2012, 07:21 AM
    Novice
    Re: Support Schedule Altered Without Court Order
    Hi - thanks for your reply. A couple of things aren't exactly clear, so I'll try to straighten them out.

    I'm not necessarily asking whether I should receive a dollar-for-dollar credit against the regular child support for money that I pay towards day care expenses. What I'm asking is that since my regular support order was established without any specific amount designated for day care, and since the worksheet appears to include a credit for day care expenses paid by me, am I interpreting it correctly that I would enter that amount. If not, what does line 22 of the worksheet represent? How does this work?

    I have no argument with health care expenses - they are correctly included and credited within the regular support order.

    The confusion here stems from that I have two separate orders signed by the Judge - one is for the regular support only (with the full calculation shown on the worksheet), and the second order is for the day care dollar amount only (without a revised worksheet).

    My income is not withheld (I pay directly to the NJ Support Center), and I did not receive any subsequent order from the Probation Dept when they combined both orders into a monthly figure. The orders I have, signed by the Judge, are for a weekly regular support amount and for a monthly day care amount.

    My interpretation of the worksheet is that the regular support obligation/calculation should be revised to reflect the additional day care specific obligation that was added afterward.
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