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All children have the right to be financially supported by their parents. It does not matter if the parents were never married, are separated or got divorced. Child support is a court-ordered payment that goes towards raising children. In the state of Massachusetts, such obligations usually last until a child is 18. However, it is possible for child support to be paid until the child is 20 years old if he or she is still attending high school.
There are several ways that child support can be agreed upon in Massachusetts. The parents can ask a judge to approve an agreed-upon support order during a divorce or other family law proceeding. Most cases are started by submitting an Application for Full Child Support Services to the Department of Revenue office.
The Department can help locate a ‘missing’ non-custodial parent and determine paternity for any children born outside legal marriage. In addition to this, the Department is able to help with the collection and distribution of child support, determining child support obligations, and then enforcing them.
Here are the services that a parent or the guardian of a child can apply for:
The State of Florida provides Guidelines to calculate the amount of child support that must be provided. The “Joint custody” or “Time-sharing” of child support in Florida depends on the calculations as per these Guidelines.
The calculations following the Guidelines consider several factors: each party’s income, the number of overnights, the cost of childcare, payment of insurance. All these factors play a crucial role in determining whether a party has to pay for child support. These calculations also pave the way for the Court to decide whether to allow joint custody or not.
There are support guidelines that are enacted by the state that determines child support amounts. A judge will use a rather complicated mathematical computation to calculate a child support formula. The most important factors influencing the child support amount are parental income, medical insurance costs, social security benefits, and daycare expenses. The child’s living arrangements are also taken into account.
With our simplified approach, you can calculate an approximate amount for child support. Easily get an idea of the amount with our Massachusetts child support calculator.
The expenses included in a child support order are basic education, health insurance, food, clothing, shelter, extraordinary medical expenses, visitation travel costs and extracurricular activities.
A parent who must receive child support payments can have it deposited into their bank account directly. It is also possible to have payments made to a Child Support Card account. It is no longer common practice for checks to be issued, but you can qualify for a possible exemption.
As mentioned earlier, a child support order can be modified with prior approval from the Court. The Court will have to be advised about the time-sharing schedule change. This is necessary in cases where the child is spending more time and lives with the non-custodial parent than the custodial parent. In such instances, the amount of child support will have to be recalculated. The new amount is calculated considering the changing number of overnights, which changes the amount of child support. The new amount replaces the existing amount after recalculations.
In Massachusetts, child support payments will end when:
