I pay child support and health insurance.

I don't really mind it, because I want my son to have the best he can be provided with and I get along with his mother very well still.

Here's my question.

What is a fair percentage of income to deduct from someone's pay for these necessities?

26.5% of my income is spent on these two items alone, though my son and I spend much time together, and he stays the entire summer with me.

Not being the primary home for him means I can't claim him as a dependent. I continue to pay whether he is with me or with her. I not only get no tax breaks, I sometimes, as Sunday while completing my taxes, feel the system does not take into account the many things I do provide.

As I said, I'm not upset, as I make it comfortably as it is, but is this a fair or rational system?

Period!

There is no way he can know if the "child support" is going to the child or not. I have a very good friend who I helped to legally gain Independence from his mother before he turned 18 because she was spending all of the child support money on gambling. *shrug*

It's a difficult thing to manage, if its possible at all.

If you think the money is not going to the child go to court.

Not saying this is the case here, I have known to many dead beats with every excuse under the sun.

Like I said no excuses.

and agree completely. I was just thinking that many who are struggling must have an extremely difficult time making it with such hefty payments. Insurance, as everyone knows, is not cheap. Shouldn't the financial burden of this be shared? After all, it did take two to create the child? The regular support payments assist with all manner of day to day and monthly needs. Why shouldn't insurance be at least a partial responsibility of both parents?

I've heard many guys say that they didn't want to pay child support so just signed over their rights. I've known one guy who said that he didn't want to pay child support because he thought this money (child support checks) should, each month, be deposited into an account that the child could use as they wished when they got older, and the mother couldn't touch. I think something a few men miss is the "SUPPORT" part of that. Child support is to support your child and if you want them to live dirt poor, than complain about what you're sending them, or what the mother is using the money for and send less. If you want them to live well, than send what you're supposed to or more.

That child was created by TWO people. My message to men? If you don't trust the person that you're about to have sex with to be a responsible parent, than don't have sex with them. Seriously. There isn't a 100% form of birth control (short of being 'fixed') so each time you decide to have sex, it's the chance you're taking.

The only victims in all of this are the children. Not the people who have to support them.

JMHO.

In NY, one child, non-custodial parent pays 15% of income to custodial parent in child support. Other things like health care, college costs, etc. are decided in the divorce neogitations, as well as who gets to claim the child. What agreement did you make in your divorce?

My ex never sees the kids at all, pays less than 25% (the norm for two kids) because his income went up dramatically since our divorce, doesn't pay for college for our son because he just refuses, and still takes our son as a dependent because that is how we set it up 10 years ago. Doesn't work for me, but there is nothing I can do about it.

If you take your child all summer, you should be able to stop child support for the duration, but you have to go to court to do it.

1. You should not have to pay her during the summer when he's with you.

2. Everything else seems fair and reasonable.

deductions.

With the divorce rate so high and with so many people in your situation it would make sense to help out both parties, however it takes a powerful lobbying group to get any kind of tax reform pushed through congress or even your state legistlature.