Calculating Child Support in Alabama

Child support is really important to people. It's important for the people that are receiving it and it's also important for the people who are paying it. You wanna go to a lawyer who knows how to calculate support. And in Alabama, we're so fortunate because we have some uniformity. We have something called Rule 32 guidelines. How that's comprised is of both parties income. Once you put both parties income in, you look at the chart basically to determine what two people that make that much should be paying for a child. After you put that in, you add in the health insurance, you add in the cost of childcare, and then you do a calculation.

Different factors can come into play. Factors being, does a person paying child support already pay support for somebody else? Or factors like, are you paying alimony? Or do you have other children at home? You really need to meet with a lawyer who knows what they're doing. People come in and see me oftentimes, are paying more than they should be in child support. And the reason for that is they don't know what should be included and what shouldn't be included, or perhaps they've agreed to pay things that they would not have to pay because the child support is supposed to cover those things.

If you'd like to pay more for your children than Rule 32 says, that's great, I think that's fantastic. But you shouldn't be obligated to pay those things because you don't know and your lawyer didn't tell you. Please come see us, I know we can help you, tell you how much child support you should pay, or tell me how much child support you should be receiving.