I'm heading into mediation to address some issues with child support and other costs. The child support calculators ask me to enter my gross income. I assume this is before taxes, but what about rental real estate losses? I make a salary at my full time job, but have two properties that rent out and am losing money on. I reported this as a loss on my taxes through schedule E. So line 22 (total income) on my 1040 is about $10,000 less than line 7 (salary) on my 1040.

Which number should be used when calculating child support?

Thanks

Your gross pay from your job. That is your income, you can present these are issues in court to the judge, but he will most likely tell you to sell them if you can't rent them out for a profit, A hobby business not making money is not normally considered in the court.

The issue is that rentals or other self employment often show losses, it does that so you don't pay taxes on that money.
But as a landlord and home buyer and seller, if you have rentals that are not paying and at least breaking even after one year, get rid of them.