Rhode Island Child Support Guidelines – The Overtime Question!

If you need to calculate or recalculate child support based on an initial petition for divorce or a Motion to Modify Child Support, you may want to approach the issue carefully if you are the one paying child support and you work. extra hours.

The judge in the Rhode Island Family Court may consider overtime to determine the amount of child support you must pay. This is complicated not because the calculations become more cumbersome or because case law or statutes provide any specific way to determine how much overtime, if any, must be factored into your gross income to calculate your child support obligation from Rhode Island. Rather, this is complicated because this particular issue is left to the discretion of the Rhode Island family court judge presiding over your case.

This would not be so complicated were it not for the fact that each judge may exercise discretion differently and have different ideas about whether and why overtime pay should be factored into your gross income to calculate child support.

Overtime pay continues to be an issue that has led to very frustrating results for some parents who appear in the Rhode Island Family Court system for that very reason.

As you can imagine, it is very difficult to meet with a client who asks the question, “Will the 20 extra hours I work each week be counted in my gross income when it comes time to calculate my child support?” and give them an answer as definitive as . . . . “maybe” . . . or, “it depends.”

Not surprisingly, prospective clients and those who consult attorneys on this topic are often upset to discover that there is no set answer that applies universally to every case. Most people expect consistency from family court judges on this unique issue and are surprised to find that this really depends on the judge’s ideas on the issue and, occasionally, on your attorney’s ability to emphasize a point. point strong enough for the Rhode Island family court judge to see. as inequitable to include overtime pay in the gross income of the parent paying child support.

Ultimately, when it comes to overtime and whether it should be considered as part of the parents’ gross income, it can become a matter of which judge is assigned to your case and their particular views on the matter. .

Does this lead to consistent results on the issue of including overtime in gross income for child support purposes? No, he does not do it. At best, there can be consistency with respect to a particular judge’s decisions on the matter. However, there is really no consistency in the Rhode Island family court judiciary on this issue.

So it should come as no surprise that a Rhode Island attorney who focuses his or her practice in the areas of divorce and family law can be your best advocate here and provide you with the best indicators of success regarding this topic once he or she becomes aware of it. . whose judge will be in your case.

As a general rule, you should anticipate that overtime pay will be considered and factored into your gross income for determining child support under the Rhode Island Child Support Guidelines if you work overtime with any degree of regularity. and consistency.

It’s like the old saying. Plan for the worst but hope for the best.

It pays to have the right attorney on your side!