You may have seen on the news the ongoing court dispute regarding child maintenance between Kevin Costner and his wife following the breakdown of their marriage (MSN Article: Kevin Costner says there are ‘no winners’ in fierce child support battle with estranged wife Christine Baumgartner).
A recent decision of the court was that Kevin should pay to his wife the sum of $63,000 per month by way of child support. A significant amount less than what she was seeking.
Although this is a case based on American law, the principles derived from the case are still interestingly relevant over this side of the Atlantic too. The court calculated the amount payable by Kevin on the basis of how much his and his wife’s incomes were and how much time each parent spends with the children.
There are other factors the court will look at which I will not go into in this blog. However, in this case, there was an argument as to the true level of Kevin’s future income with Kevin arguing that he should be able to pick and choose what work he carried out as an actor, and should not feel obliged to take on jobs that he did not want to do.
In England and Wales, “child support” or ‘child maintenance’, as it is called here, is calculated in a similar way. The child maintenance liability is calculated based on the gross salary of the non-resident parent. The resident parent’s income is not taken into account at all when considering the maintenance liability, which could lead to an unfair result if the resident parent’s income is significantly higher than the non-resident parent’s income.
One way in which the Costner case is different to English laws is that there was some element of consideration of the children’s reasonable needs which is not a requirement in England.
There is a deduction to the maintenance liability for overnight stays that the child has with the non-resident parent i.e. the liability is reduced by 1/7 if the child spends one overnight week per week.
If a parent is employed, it can be fairly simple to calculate their child maintenance liability. However, it can be more difficult to calculate child maintenance if the parent is self employed. If that is the case then it is not gross income that is taken into account but rather the net profits of the company which would be set out in the company accounts. Some people are mistaken that it is the company’s turnover which is the appropriate figure for calculating child maintenance but this is incorrect.
The rules regarding child maintenance can be complicated if a parent works on a self employed basis and this can lead to disputes between parents as to the right and wrong amount to be paid by way of child maintenance.
Given these complexities, you should seek legal advice to get more information as to how much you should be seeking by way of child maintenance, and what steps you can take if a parent is refusing to pay child maintenance or not paying the correct amount.
Our team has extensive experience in this area. Please get in touch with our Family Team at FamilyTeam@Jacksons-law.com.
