Discover the expert in you.
Discover the expert in you.
Every parent wants to believe that his child is successful, brilliant and destined for achievement. If your child's kindergarten teacher wants to hold him back, it can be difficult to accept that your child is struggling. Reacting defensively, however, can prevent you from getting important information about your child's progress and gaining an understanding of what you can do to help. Asking the right questions can also help you determine if holding your child back is the best solution or if another option might be more effective.
Telling a child to do something doesn't have to involve a power struggle if you don't allow it to. Learn about telling a child to do something without a power struggle with help from a family therapist and child development specialist in this free video clip.
Claiming a child as a dependent is a right that you have to attain in a very specific way. Obtain the right to claim a child as a dependent with help from a practiced attorney in this free video clip.
You can waive the rights to retroactive child support in a very specific way. Learn how to waive rights to retroactive child support with help from a licensed attorney who specializes in financial information in this free video clip.
A parent’s life does not stop or stagnate after divorce. Changes such as new employment or remarriage might require him to relocate. Arizona prefers that parents adjust their custody arrangements by agreement when such events occur. If that’s not possible, you can also petition the court to restructure your custody order for you.
If you are a custodial parent, the child tax credit is a means of potentially reducing your tax debt by up to $1,000 for each of your children. Unless you’ve chosen to allow the noncustodial parent to take the tax credit, only your ability to meet the IRS’s qualifications limits access to this tax benefit.
Child co-pays fall under the category of unpaid medical expenses. In many cases, state guidelines on child support include guidelines about who should pay unpaid medical expenses. But often the decision over how to cover those falls to the parents in their divorce agreement. There are many ways to handle the issue, according to the American Bar Association.
Blank pages, thrown pencils and maybe even a few screams demonstrate the frustration and difficulty involved in making a stubborn child write. For those who've received more than one emphatic "No!" when instructing a child to complete a writing task, making writing a more exciting experience for the child will help even the most stubborn youngster pick up a pencil and let the words flow.
Historically, grandparents have often played a role in the lives of their grandchildren, sometimes seeing them as often as weekly or even living with them. When it comes to divorce custody proceedings in the United States, each state is allowed to determine its own laws in regard to grandparents and their rights. In 2000, the case of Troxel vs. Granville changed the way that some states handle grandparents' rights. Ohio's laws, however, were not impacted by this ruling.
If you're a noncustodial parent, that is, the parent who has physical custody of your child less than half the time, you generally must pay the custodial parent child support. The custodial parent is the parent who has physical custody of your child more than half the time. In many states, the law calculates child support on a pro rata basis.
Finding a dad’s place of employment could allow you to begin receiving child support payments, or resume receiving payments if the dad changed jobs. Various state and federal agencies compile employment information, including the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Defense. The federal government also maintains the National Directory of New Hires database. By law, employers must report new hires to the database. The IRS and other agencies will not divulge a dad’s place of employment to the general public or a parent, but there is another way to get the information from the agencies.
Child support laws are very severe in Kentucky; owing child support when living out of state can result in extradition back to Kentucky, court appearances and even jail time. In most cases, Kentucky uses wage deduction to pay child support. However, people who work for themselves or who lose their job may get behind on their child support payments. While Kentucky is not a state that allows for child support payment negotiation, you can reduce your arrears by paying as much of it off in the fastest way possible using a variety of methods.
Joint custody offers a child to spend time with parents separately. If you are a struggling father in Louisiana requesting joint custody while paying child support, you may have already spoken with the Department of Children and Families (DCF), the office that handles child support enforcement. Whether you have questions about your custodial rights or you want to adjust your child support payments, contact the local DCF office for more information.
Your divorce or separation agreement may provide you with payments for child support or alimony, and in some cases, both. You must include all alimony payments in your gross income, but child support payments are never taxable. If the payments are unallocated in your divorce or separation agreement, meaning you are unable to determine how much is for alimony versus child support, the IRS provides a number of factors you must evaluate.
California parents can initiate paternity suits on their own or request assistance from the California Department of Child Support Services. Courts can order genetic testing before requesting an order for child support payments. Depending on the results of any paternity tests and suits, custodial parents can sue noncustodial parents for child support payments. Custodial parents can serve income and employment verification statements on noncustodial parents through private attorneys or can request assistance from the California Department of Child Support Services.
A weekly allowance budgeted into your monthly spending plan is an opportunity for you to take control of the day-to-day miscellaneous expenses that can create havoc in a household. Instead of swiping your debit or credit card every time you stop for coffee, have lunch out or stop at the drug store for some personal items, you'll dip into a cash allowance that you pay yourself each week. You'll learn to make better choices because a finite allowance, allocated in advance, helps you to prioritize your purchases and can reduce impulse buying.
When a marriage ends over financial problems, no one wants the added worry of whether their spousal support is subject to a creditor's garnishment. Unfortunately, when the debt gets out of hand, that is exactly what you may have to face. The good news is that, if a garnishment is in your future, the creditor is legally required to provide you fair notice and an opportunity to do something about it.
Washington State no longer refers to parenting conflicts as "custody" issues. Rather, the state requires the use of a "parenting plan" to decide who will have the right to make child-rearing decisions and spend time with the child. The state prefers to encourage a relationship between the child and both parents, and rarely grants sole custody to one parent unless the court has serious concerns about the other parent. You must file a proposed parenting plan and show the court why the other parent should have restricted rights.
Your child's custodial parent, i.e., the one with primary custody, becomes a creditor when you fall behind on child support. From the moment she serves your employer with the garnishment paperwork, your employer generally has between 30 to 45 days to respond and pay. In Georgia, a child support garnishment can take up to 50% of your disposable earnings.
Your individual retirement account (IRA) is designed to help you save money for retirement by allowing you to defer taxes on your income and the investments inside the account. In addition to special tax treatment, the government has established rules designed to protect your money from lawsuits and creditors. In most cases, your traditional IRA cannot be lost in a court judgment. If you own a SEP IRA, however, you can potentially lose your money if you are sued.
If you've caught wind that your ex, with whom you have joint custody of a child, is planning on moving out of the area with your child, one of the first things you're going to want to do is try to stop it from happening. Because you have joint custody, it is against the law for the other parent to take the child to a new location without your consent and you can ask the court to prevent the move from happening or force the parent to return to the area.
In the past, it was not common for those receiving retirement benefits through Social Security to have minor children. Times have changed, however. The U.S. Census Bureau notes that in 2007, the average number of births for women over age 40 was the highest it had ever been. Because Americans are becoming parents at an older age, it isn’t unthinkable that a couple could still have minor children when they retire and begin receiving Social Security. The minor children of that union then become eligible for government benefits.
When tax season arrives, people want to make sure they don't overpay and certain people will go to great lengths to identify any tax deduction they can find. There are documented cases of taxpayers receiving writeoffs for cat food, breast augmentation and even the cost of their entire wardrobe. Unfortunately, tax law isn't so generous to parents who pay child support. The Internal Revenue Service won't allow parents to claim any deductions on their federal tax return for the child support they pay.
When parents share joint custody of their daughter, they may need legal guidance regarding which parent has a right to claim her as a dependent child for tax purposes. Even when parents have joint custody, Internal Revenue Service regulations may still identify one parent as custodial and the other as noncustodial. Each parent may need to consult with a tax accountant or family law attorney with tax experience to receive personalized advice regarding the right to claim a daughter as a dependent for tax purposes.
Filing status determines the type of income tax credits, deductions and exemptions for which you are eligible. There are five different types of filing statuses: single, married filing jointly, married filing separately, head of household and qualifying widow(er) with a dependent child. Even if you are legally married, there are some situations in which you can be considered unmarried in order to claim head of household status or qualifying widow(er) with dependent child.
The advent of technology has created a web of interconnectedness among government agencies. Gone are the days when one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is up to. In today’s government, agencies share all varieties of information about taxpayers, including which taxpayers owe child support debts. Chances are that if you owe back child support, any refund resulting from your return will be used to pay it.
Allocating your salary to meet your expenses is the central component of creating a balanced budget. The process informs your spending by requiring you to set priorities, setting aside a certain portion of your salary for each of your spending activities. Allocate first to those categories that you need before allocating to meet your wants and desires. A roof over your head and running water in the sink typically take precedence over the newest electronic toy or the latest designer handbag. Deferred expenses, such as savings for emergencies and retirement, are a common part of salary allocation.
For parents who are divorced, separated or unmarried, there is typically a custodial parent and a non-custodial parent. According to the IRS, the custodial parent is the one with whom the child lived a greater number of nights during the year. If the child's time was split equally, the custodial parent is the one with a higher adjusted gross income. Although custodial parents reap the greatest tax deductions, there are some tax deductions available to non-custodial parents as well.
When a person fails to pay back a loan, the creditor may, if state law allows, attempt to garnish the person's wages. However, federal law prohibits a private creditor from garnishing certain types of income, such as most types of benefits paid from the government. That said, states are allowed to garnish Social Security disability insurance and sometimes disability income from Veterans Affairs if the debtor has failed to pay child support that he was ordered to pay by a court.
Texas, like all states, is part of a national child support enforcement program. A parent who is not receiving child support payments has an entire network of state and national resources that work together to ensure that parents share the financial responsibility of caring for their children. Parents who live in Texas have several options for resolving child support issues.
When a child's parents do not live together, the non-custodial parent, meaning the parent the child does not live with a majority of the time, must pay child support to the custodial parent. Child support payments are meant to maintain a child's standard of living as if the child resided in a two-parent household. There are no rules that govern specifically what support covers. The court assumes the custodial parent uses support to pay what is necessary to raise the child. These expenses range from basic necessities such as food, clothes and shelter to extracurricular and recreational activities.
The Kansas Supreme Court enacted child support guidelines based on parental income shares. Each parent's child support obligation depends on his proportionate share of income. In most states, courts do not modify child support awards to take remarriage into account. As such, if you are a father ordered to pay child support to your ex-wife, your new wife's income will not affect your existing child support order.
Your local child support enforcement agency is the proverbial 600-pound gorilla among creditors; not only are your arrears nondischargeable in bankruptcy, but you can lose your house, your car, a personal injury settlement, your driver's and professional licenses and even your freedom for not taking care of the balance, as ordered. Whether a child support creditor can put a lien upon your inheritance, however, is not as clear.
Once behind on child support, you can be labeled a deadbeat parent and even find yourself behind bars. Fortunately, many judges will allow you time to catch up on your payments before prison time becomes an issue. Not only will getting caught up keep you on the right side of the law, but you will provide your children the help they need. Don't forget, if your child's other parent ever used Medicaid or accepted welfare benefits for your children, you will also need to repay the state before you are no longer at risk of serving time.
Family law varies from state to state. However, as a general rule, as long as you are your child's legal parent, you must provide financial support for your child. The child does not cease to be your responsibility simply because you didn't obtain sole custody. The custody agreement between you and your child's mother only influences your rights to see and make decisions concerning your child.
Although turning 18 and graduating from high school generally mark the end of a parent's child support obligation, child support doesn't necessarily stop when your child reaches the age of majority and gets his high school diploma. A number of circumstances exist under which your child support obligation can continue into and even through your son or daughter's college years.
In Pennsylvania, there is a presumption of custody rights for the unwed mother. However, the matter can be challenged by the unwed father and the court may step in if there are other issues concerning the health and welfare of the child. At the point of challenge, a series of state laws are followed to review the situation case by case.
When a couple with children splits up, they have to decide not only where the children will live, but how each parent will support them. All states now have guidelines that calculate an appropriate amount of support based upon the incomes of the parties and the needs of the children. Although centralized systems exist for the payment of child support through court, parties are generally free to make payment arrangements without court involvement.
Parents who receive child support use the funds to pay for necessary expenses for their children. Non-custodial parents usually make these payments in connection with a court order or an arrangement with the custodial parents. While child support can provide financial assistance for child care costs and normal expenses, the Internal Revenue Service does not consider it to be a form of income.
The Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, allows divorcing spouses to deduct their fees paid to attorneys for alimony or tax advice; all other fees paid to attorneys are nondeductible. The IRS does not allow divorcing spouses to deduct their attorneys' fees used to defend against paying child support or used to collect child support payments. Instead, if you paid your divorce attorney to collect or defend against paying child support, and you paid your divorce attorney to render professional tax advice or to pursue or to defend you against paying alimony, you can only deduct the portion of fees related…
When your minor children start earning a paycheck, it gives you an opportunity to talk to them about personal responsibility, money management, and the rationale behind paying taxes in return for local, state and federal government services. One might even throw in a civics lesson or two about how our government works or doesn't work, depending on your point-of-view. The early experience gained by children working for pay establishes a solid work ethic and an appreciation for the value of money.
State governments across the country consider child support money a domestic support obligation for debt purposes. This gives child support payments the highest priority when multiple creditors place levies on a debtor's bank accounts or personal property. This debt priority is also the province of other government creditors, including the Internal Revenue Service.
If you have a child who lives with the other parent, and you do not have legal custody of the child, a court may order you to make child support payments to the other parent. Child support payments are designed to help the custodial parent care for the child, particularly if you earn more than the other parent. If you do not make child support payments as required, you may be subject to wage garnishment.
When a person becomes delinquent on payments for a loan, child support or alimony, it's common for creditors or spouses to ask a court of law for help. When the court decides to intercede, it usually issues a garnishment order against the debtor. While some wages and assets can't be garnished, others can; the rules depend upon what's delinquent, what type of earnings the debtor receives and where he lives.
Many taxpayers look forward to tax season because they usually receive tax refunds. This is especially true if you pay tax withholding payments from your paycheck all year long and can take a number of big tax breaks, such as the child tax credit or dependent exemptions. However, if you owe back child support, the IRS can hold your tax refund, diverting it to pay off your debt.
Custody issues between separated parents can make it difficult to determine who has the right to claim a child as a dependent on an income tax return. During a child custody and child support hearing, the ruling typically includes who legally claims the child on taxes. Speak to your lawyer if you are unclear about this ruling and whether the issue was decided during court proceedings.
A divorce can have dramatic emotional effects, but it can also have financial effects. You and your former spouse must consider separate living expenses, alimony and child support payments. Divorce can also affect your taxes, particularly if you have children. If you and your former spouse have joint custody of your daughter, whether you can claim your daughter as a dependent depends primarily on the details of your divorce agreement.
If you collect Illinois unemployment insurance benefits, then you may also qualify to receive additional benefits for a dependent child. To qualify for these benefits, the child must meet certain requirements. However, you can typically collect benefits for a dependent child even if you are not his custodial parent.
When a court orders a parent to pay child support, that support order generally continues until the child reaches the age of 18. However, in some situations, the court can order the parent to maintain payments longer than this. Child support laws are state-specific, so consult an attorney in your area for advice about the situation if you are being told to pay support after a child has grown.
Deciding on the custody arrangements of a child is one of the most critical decisions a couple will have to make. Custody is not only an issue for parents who are divorcing; parents who have never been married and who live apart have to make decisions regarding the custody of their child or children. Sole custody and joint custody are two terms that affect the rights and responsibilities of parents. If a parent has sole custody, they are the primary caregiver of the child and can make all decisions independently about the child’s welfare. Parents who have joint custody share…
