[SALVIANGEL]

My Uncle is a self employed man who has a job that has its peak seasons such as the spring and the summer. In the winter the fall his income is vastly reduced and he still has to pay the same amount in child support. I was wondering if his income does change if he can requested for a lower amount based on these changes. Also his ex-wife won't let him get records from their children's school. She is stating that they attend private school but they have not attend private school for almost a year and she has not reported the change how can he get the proper documentation so that he can show this in court?:confused:

[cdad]

If he has legal custody.. which is often the case. Then he can march into their office and ask for it. Since his job is seasonal he still has to plan on the money lasting for a year. So I doubt the courts are going to change it. And they aren't going to change it every few months for sure. Most court systems usually like to have a 2 year rule before making changes unless there is some physical changes going on like a drastic change in custody or huge increase in a paycheck.

[Fr_Chuck]

His child support should be looked at, not on the weekly but the yearly amount, so it would be based on a yearly amount divided by 12 for the month, If he has had reduced wages, or if he failed to clearify this at the orgainal hearings, he needs to present this to the court for a request.

They will look at his earnings and either reduce, leave the same or even raise ( it is set by a forumula)

As for the records, as noted, he if he has joint legal custody ( not physcial) he can merely demand them from the school.

But what does the court order say about her informing

And has he merely asked the child when he gets the child for visits

[cadillac59]

I've had this issue come up several times before and it is a difficult one. It typically is an problem with people who work in the construction trade where they have an on-season and off-season. It strikes me as fundamentally unfair to make a guy pay child support during his off-season based upon a yearly average because he winds up paying support on money he simply doesn't have and may never get in the future.

Of course, the problem with using the actual current income to set support is that the parties would have to return several times a year to adjust support whenever the season changed and no courts like that.

I argued in favor of using actual current income for a guy in the construction business a few years ago in front of a judge who disagreed with me. She used the prior year's average in calculating support. A year later, at settlement conference, it turned out I was right-- the client made about $10,000 less that prior year than the year before so the support order was technically inflated. I had tried to point out that he was not going to make the same in the future due to a number of factors but she, the judge, wouldn't listen.

So yeah, many judges will simply use prior year's average in setting support for someone with seasonal income, but they don't have to. Judges have discretion to take into account any factors they think are fair at gauging what really needs to be assessed- what the best predictor is of the payor's future income (after all, support is suppose to be based on actual income during the period support is payable).

The problem with cases with seasonal income is that we have to use a crytal ball of sorts to try to figure out future income and using the last 12 months just often isn't the answer.