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I would black out your SSN and anybody else's on the return as well. It is possible for a copy of the return to get into your file and in many states those case files are public record.

I don't know what state you are in but in my state the new spouses income is used to identify what tax bracket you are in, which effects how much money you have available after taxes for support. So there may be a reason to allow the court to know what your spouse makes.

The trustee is required to recommend you to get an attorney to represent your interests, and trustees are not necessarily attorneys so to say that they are part of a "club" is unfair.

My husbands ex tried to have a judgment for reimbursement of marital debt discharged in bankruptcy. Ordinarily she could have had it discharged, but my husband fought it and won so she still had to pay. It wasn't for child support.

Since yours is and you have a court order proving it then I would think your case would be a slam dunk. I personally would hire an attorney, however I don't think it likely that the judge would order her to pay the fees, only because she is filing bankruptcy and likely doesn't have enough money to pay. However you could argue that since she won't have all her other debts to pay since they will be discharged she would have extra money to pay the fees.

Anyway good luck and let us know how it goes.

If, for example,
>>the order says "NCP pays CP $xxx per month for child support
>>and $yyy per month for child care" and he continued to pay
>>that, I don't think she's in violation even if she doesn't
>>spend that money. It's up to her how to spend support
>monies.

This is how my court order was worded and he successfully got it modified retroactively 10 months later even though he knew three months prior to them being taken out of child care that it was happening and I offered to modify at that time.

So I think if the original poster could prove that the child wasn't in daycare and no expenses were incurred then he could get a refund AS LONG AS the court order specifically states that money is for child care.

I think he needs to file for a modification and ask for receipts from the daycare center to prove her expenses, not a 1040 because those can easily be made up and not be the original filed.

Every time I have had a modification that was retroactive it was spelled out in the order how much was owed at the time the order was entered.

Does your order address the fact that you had overpaid, or does it just say that the new amount is XXX effective Jan 1? Or have you always been paying through you Child support Agency?

If the court order addresses how much you have paid/overpaid or if you have been making all your payment through the Child Support Agency then I would think they wouldn't take any money from your check or refund any money taken until the overpayment is used up with upcoming support obligations.

Here in CA our local child support agency returned all payments made by my ex to him when they thought he had overpaid but they hadn't entered the order correctly so for almost a year my ex would pay every month and then they would cut him a check for the amount they thought he had overpaid.

If you haven't been paying through the agency and the court order doesn't address your balance at the date of filing then I would think you would need to prove to the child support agency that you made the payments that you did and that you weren't behind in child support for them to credit you properly.

Good luck with this.

My ex was paying a set amount for child care expenses each month and 3 months prior to the kids stopping daycare I notified my ex and told him I would be happy to adjust the child care and child support when he was ready to do so. Anyway he told me he wasn't interested in changing things because ultimately he would be paying more due to child support being higher. (I had agreed to him paying a reduced amount do to financial circumstances that were no longer an issue.)

Move forward a year and he files for a modification and tells the judge the kids haven't been in daycare for almost a year and he wants that money back. I explained that I had notified him in advance and that he didn't want the change because his child support would have been higher. Well the judges response was that child support isn't retroactive but daycare expenses are a reimbursement of actually incurred cost and since the cost wasn't incurred he didn't have to pay. He gave my ex credit for the 10 months of day care expenses he had over paid then he raised child support to amount it should have been, but that wasn't retroactive.

Anyway we are in CA, I don't know where you are or if they would look at it the same, but I think if you could prove the kid/s aren't in daycare and the costs haven't actually been incurred then I think you win.

If you file for a modification you can just serve the ex with a demand for documents and if she fails to provide them then subpoena them from the provider.

Hope this helps.

 

Mist your posts are written is such a fashion that the poster may assume you are an attorney and that you are giving legal advice that they could rely on. You seem to be very definite in your posts about what is and isn't allowed and what will be done in different situations. I don't know where you live, and your comments may be very true for your area, but I for one can vouch for the fact that it is not so where I live.

What is important to understand is that not only is each state different in how they handle family law matters, but also each county within each state often deals with family law issues differently.

I think its important not to mislead the posters (unintentionally I'm sure) by letting them think that you are an attorney. Several weeks back some posters even had a thread on here in which they said they felt that you may be Soc in hiding (if I remember properly you stated then that you are not an attorney at all). I feel that they thought this because you write your posts in such an authoritative way that implies you know all the laws and what is allowed and not allowed and you tell people what is going to happen. I know you haven't ever flat out said you were an attorney but you are aware that some posters think you are (or thought you were) and you continue to write your posts in the same way and don't give any disclosure about you not being an attorney, that you are not giving legal advice, or that you are writing from your own experiences.

All of us have learned so much about the legal process in our own experiences and what you and other posters here have to offer could be of tremendous help to someone. Making it clear however that they are just that, "our experiences", not the absolute of what is and isn't in family law is necessary. Especially in this forum where people have gone for years to get advise from a licensed attorney (Soc) and people still come here thinking they will get just that.

I hope you don't take offense as I do think your posts have value and I think that your experiences and what you have observed can very much be helpful to posters on here.


For the original poster...

Often hairdressers are self employed and only rent a station at a salon (unless she works for a place like Great Clips or something). Anyway they not only get their fees, but also they get tips on top of that. I pay my hairdresser $100 to color and cut my hair ($87 charge and $13 tip), however it takes her 2and a half hours to do my hair so she is only making around $40 and hour to do my hair. An established hairdresser with regular clients would have pretty consistent appointments, however someone just starting out would have a very spotty calendar. Also my hairdresser is very reasonable in prices, my friend pays almost double what I do for the same thing at a different salon.

If she is an actual employee of a salon then it shouldn't be too difficult to determine how much she makes because she would have pay stubs and tips "should" be reported on them. Each jurisdiction handles these situations differently, here in my area a judge would likely take the last several pay stubs and average them to determine the amount (unless it is lower than minimum wage, then they would impute that). I know in the restaraunt business it is common for tip earners to have their entire wage go to taxes and they only take home the tips. I don't know if the hair industry works the same way or not.

If she is self employed it gets slightly trickier. However self employed hairdressers keep appointment books with names of customers and the times of the appointments and often they will include what is being done to the client. She should also have a fee schedule that would say how much she charges for different things. I would think your attorney could subpoena those records and her bank records to show deposits and you could make an argument regarding how much she actually made that way.   It would likely be terribly expensive though and likely not worth the effort.

I don't know where you live or the rules of your area. But I am in CA and in my county all you need is a change in income of either party of $50 a month to get a modification of support. This mean you could file for modification at any time, even every month if you wanted. I know that some areas only allow modifications every two years.

I suspect that you are between a rock and a hard place because if you actually need the child support then you will likely need to spend a great deal of money to prove what she is making (if she is self employed) and then it would take many months of the increased amount of child support to ever make up for what you spent. You would likely be better off keeping your money and using it to support the children than spending it on a court battle that may or may not be worth the investment.

Good luck.

Those are old posts that the user modified by deleting what they originally posted. This resulted in their post renewing and becoming new do to the modification. Those posts that say Soc were old and were from the impostor anyway.

If you really think they would reduce child support then my suggestion would be to happy with what you are getting for now. Then when the child turns 18 go to court and get an order that the weekly payments continue until arrears are satisfied. In the mean time interest will continue to accrue and she will just owe more and more.

Your first post indicated you were the father seeking to collect child support from the Bio Mother, your last post talks about some home purchased by a male made but you didn't say how this male had anything to do with the Bio Mother paying support.

I could see the argument both ways as far as the payment for past due support goes. It would best be answered by what the exact text of your order says. For instance if it said any time the Mother is in arrears then she pays X amount more per week then I would say you would be right. If it is ambiguous or says until arrears are paid then I would say she wins.

Either way you will likely need to go back to court and have it clarified and declared what exactly her arrears are at this point. You may also want to consider turning it over to your local child support agency. I know that some of them are nightmares to deal with, however not all of them are. I have mostly had a good experience with my support office.

Good Luck.

I agree that you should wait until the 6 months is up in IL to file. Unless the agreement as signed with chicken scratch and all is what you want. Then file in FL then after the 6 months request a change of venue to the childs home state. One catch though. If the agreement was just signed and not notarized good luck getting any judge in the world to order it.

I think you should have never agreed to send the child anywhere until you had a court order saying she lived with you and she had to send her back. Perhaps you ought to see if you can have the ticket moved to another date later in the summer so that you can file in IL in June and get a temp order prior to sending her for a visit.