Child Support

My ex husband and I have exchanged “proof of income” for the purpose of review of his current child support obligation. The amount of support he has been paying for the past several years is ridiculously low. I know he has been hiding money for years, I do not have thousands of dollars to prove it, but in the last year he has begun to flaunt his extravagant lifestyle. He has a good job and when we recently exchanged our incomes to adjust the child support without attorneys involved, he readily agreed to a review of income and to increase his child support obligation by more than 3 times the current amount, but would only give me a statement from his employer’s HR department. I know this is proof of his base salary only, because I am sure he gets bonuses and judging from his lifestyle, and the 3 big ticket vacations he has taken in the last 12 months alone, I am sure he has more income than the statement from HR indicates. He also hid over $78,000 received from his parents when he lost his job, a couple of years ago, by creating promisory notes giving the appearance that the money was a" loan" from his parents to be repaid. I am sure the money was never repaid. If it was he and his parents should be able to provide proof of repayment. What kind of impact could this have on him and his parents with respect to his child support obligation and income taxes for both him and his parents? Also, am I entitled to request a copy of his tax return, his w2, and/or a statement from his employer to include any and all income including bonuses and proof of his repayment of the loan from his parents? We were going to make the child support adjustment without spending money for attorneys but I need to be sure of what I am entitled to have as proof of his income before I move forward. Thank you for any information you can provide.

Unless you have filed a lawsuit, you can’t force him to provide anything. You can certainly ask him to provide more than he has already provided, but he won’t have to comply unless there is litigation pending. If there is pending litigation he is required by the court to provide certain disclosures. You would also have the ability to send subpoenas to his bank/employer if litigation is pending.