Can a parent reduce their child support obligation by earning less?

Nevada courts recognize that income sometimes decreases for legitimate reasons. People lose jobs, become disabled, retire, or change careers for valid reasons. On the other hand, courts also recognize that some parents intentionally reduce their income to lower child support. The law attempts to distinguish between these situations.

Income is a major factor in child support calculations.

Nevada child support guidelines use parents’ income to calculate a parent’s child support obligation. This leads many parents to earn less, or at least claim to earn less, in an effort to reduce their child support payments.

Under the child support guidelines, a parent’s child support obligation is based on their income from almost any source. There are a few exceptions: child support received (as in, for instance, child support payments received for the support of another child), foster care or kinship care payments, supplemental security income, state supplemental payments, and various public assistance programs (SNAP, etc.).

Is a parent is underemployed or unemployed without good cause?

Under NAC 425.125, if “the court determines that an obligor is underemployed or unemployed without good cause, the court may impute income to the obligor.” In other words, if the court finds someone is underemployed or unemployed “without good cause,” the court will base child support upon the income the parent could earn instead of what the parent actually earns.

Whether there is good cause or not depends on the circumstances. For example, many teachers could earn more at other professions. If a parent has been a teacher for many years before paying child support, the court will likely find the parent has good cause for being a teacher. On the other hand, if a parent quits a higher-paying job as an engineer the day after the other parent asks for child support, and gets a job as a teacher instead, the court will likely find the reason the parent did so was to reduce the child support obligation – no good cause.

If a court determines there is no good cause, it will ‘impute income.’

If the court “imputes income,” it will base child support on what a parent could earn rather than what they actually earn. NAC 425 requires the court to take into consideration many factors when determining what a parent could earn:

• the parent’s assets,
• residence,
• employment and earnings history,
• job skills,
• education attainment,
• literacy,
• age,
• health,
• criminal record or other employment barriers;
• record of seeking work,
• the local job market,
• the availability of employers willing to hire the parent, and
• any other relevant factors.

Looking at all these factors, the court will determine how much income to impute. In some cases, vocational experts can testify about what jobs are realistically available and how much the parent could reasonably earn.

Examples of Good Cause.

Disability: People who are disabled may be excused from work and the corresponding income, especially if they are receiving disability income.

Retirement: People are not required to work until they die: people of retirement age are usually allowed to retire and stop working.

Involuntary Unemployment: Sometimes a parent loses a job through no fault of his or her own. If a parent is not working, but is generally able to work, then the court will likely give that parent some time to find work. How much time depends on the current hiring conditions, the parent’s qualifications, and the type of work sought. Courts will likely expect a certain amount of effort to find work, often expressed as a certain number of job applications per week. Some judges tend to use the same standard for all cases, which can be unfortunate as an effective job search for a parent who works as a CEO of large technology companies is very different from an effective job search for a parent seeking work as a retail sales clerk. In any case, if a judge becomes convinced that a parent is not doing enough to find employment, the judge will likely impute income.

The bottom line.

A parent may receive lower child support after a legitimate reduction in income. However, a parent generally cannot reduce child support simply by choosing to earn less. If the court concludes that the parent is unemployed or underemployed without good cause, it may calculate child support based on what a parent could earn rather than what the parent actually earns.