When alimony is determined, will child support be considered or deducted from alimony? I know that the affidavit contains items that are child specific. Is that not that taken care of with child support?
The use of a financial affidavit is to show what each party’s overall need is. Yes, there are usually cateogories for expenses for the children, but also a portion of household expenses such as the mortgage/rent, utilities, food, gas, etc. should also be attributed to the children since they are members of the household so I don’t think the best approach to calculate alimony is to subtract out the expenses attributed to the children. I usually use the financial affidavit to see what the needs are of the dependent spouse. Subtracting any child support he or she receives, leaves you with the remaining needs of the party.
If this is the case, what formula is used to determine the child’s portion of these expenses? Is it a percentage? Maybe 80%/20%, 70%/30%? Or is some other mechanism used to determine this split?
Thanks for the explanation.
The point of that sentence was to show that child support isn’t simply paying for the expenses solely attributable to the minor children but for a portion of all the household expenses. There is no set calculation for alimony, and therefore it is good to look at the overall need of the spouse, subtracting from that any payments he/she receives from child support.
Thank you for making that clearer.
You’re welcome.