By Law, One of the Two Parents Must Pay Child Support 

Per statute, the non-primary residential parent must pay the primary residential parent the costs of maintaining the child in his or her residence.  These costs are rolled into what is called a “transfer payment.”  The transfer payment is usually due at the beginning of each month.

Calculating the transfer payment is rather like calculating your taxes.  Some years ago, the Legislature enacted a child support worksheet, which is rather like a 1040 form, and a child support table, which is rather like the tax table.

To calculate where you fit on this table, you plug in your income and your expenses in one column of the worksheet and the other side’s income and expenses into the other column.  You then come up with a combined monthly net income, find that amount on the table, then determine your presumptive transfer payment.

A court may deviate from the presumptive transfer payment for a number of reasons, the most common reason is that the child spends a significant amount of time with the person making the transfer payment.

One of the two parents is legally required to pay child support even if the parents split custody 50 /50, and even if the person required to pay has never set eyes on the child.  The only exception to this rule is if parental rights have been terminated.  If Mark Twain were alive today, his revised famous quip about certainty would have been: the only things that are certain in this life are death, taxes, and child support.