At the time one’s divorce is imminent, often two main concerns are obviously going to be child support and child custody. It is reasonable to conclude that in many cases, the fights over child support are not rooted in making sure that the children’s needs are well taken care of. It’s rooted in maximizing the [...]
A tragedy of epic proportions took place this past week at the Cheshire County, New Hampshire Courthouse. Thomas James Ball set himself ablaze, committing suicide, presumably due to being despondent after many years enduring a protracted high-conflict divorce, child custody, and child support case. The level of conflict in the case was purportedly aided and [...]
Dateline: April 2011. There was once a time when many states had on their child support statutes a provision that allowed them to require non-custodial parents to pay their child’s college tuition, in part or in whole, as part of their child custody cases. This would be in addition to that “standard” child support which [...]
In keeping with the recent spate of theft of child support related funds by those charged with overseeing the massive cash pile, comes a story out of South Carolina. Elizabeth Smith, now “former” Beaufort County Clerk of Courts, has agreed to plead guilty in Federal Court to “misusing” (see: STEALING) federal child support enforcement funds. [...]
With the gargantuan size of the child support industry, it almost goes without saying that the system has plenty of people who would seek to take advantage of the flood of money that flows through child support collections offices. One of several recent reports includes the story out of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office. [...]
Mark the dates! Please attend if you can. Every four years, it is a legal requirement that the state of Iowa review its child support guidelines. That time has arrived in 2011. The Iowa Child Support Advisory Commission is holding the first in a series of three town hall meetings this Thursday, February 3rd, 2001 [...]
In 2009, child support payments and collections fell for the first time in 30-years within the worst economy in decades. While the statistics for 2010 have yet to be released, it’s very likely that child support payments fell again last year. Contributing to the decline are the obvious reasons – alarmingly high unemployment rates in [...]
In yet another in a long line of examples of the government wielding its power to nonsensically invade people’s private lives for the sole purpose of unnecessarily making them more difficult – the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that cooperating parents who make agreements to modify child support orders on their own are not permitted to [...]
It almost goes without saying that the children of divorce are significantly less likely to receive continuing education financial assistance from their parents that those who remain in intact families. The latest study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Rice University in Texas re-affirmed that which many people already knew. That study appears in the [...]
One of the chief complaints we often hear from child support payors is that they pay too much. From payees, we hear that they get too little. From the payors, it’s that there is no accounting for what their often substantial child support payments go towards. From the payees, there are claims that child support [...]
