Income may still be imputed to your ex-wife.
The operative word in the Guidelines phrase you cite is “and.” “And” is a conjunctive expression, meaning that all of the requirements of the rule must be satisfied before the action may (or may not) be taken. In your case, the child for whom child support is being determined in ten years old. Ten is greater than three. Therefore, the first clause of the “Potential income…” sentence was not satisfied.
In a recent NC Court of Appeals case (Roberts v. McAllister (2005)), the trial judge imputed income to a non-custodial mother who had a three month old infant with her new husband. Child support was being determined for the three kids she had with her ex, the custodial father. The COA upheld the trial court’s decision to impute income to the non-custodial mother. One of the three COA judges disagreed with the COA majority’s decision to impute income to non-custodial mother. But, this dissent was not directly based on the fact that the non-custodial mother’s baby with her new husband was under three years of age.
Seems to me your ex’s strategy is legally unsound. She cannot avoid her financial responsibility for an existing child simply because she chooses to have more children, and the Guidelines passage you cite says so. She’ll need some other grounds to get your child support changed.
On a related note, if anyone can explain how income imputed to a custodial parent benefits the child, I’d be most interested to read your explanation.
I don’t think it’s supposed to benefit the child, I think it’s the one way they have to try to make things fair to those dads paying child support. My fiance’s ex was not working and living solely on the child support he was paying for their three children. He is not obligated to support her, only the children. I think income is imputed to try to get some of those women to take care of themselves. It lowered his child support quite a bit. However, the amount imputed is not close to what she would earn if she would actually try to earn a living. Once the child support is gone, she can’t live on the amount that has been imputed. Then, maybe she’ll get a job. Hurrah!!! Only 9 more years of keeping her up!!!
Ya know…I don’t understand how all these women live on child support alone? Is it because they are too sorry to work? It takes a real piece of work to take $$ that is supposed to go to their child and live off of it. I, by no means, live a lavish lifestyle(unlike my ex and his woman) ie: 2 bedroom apt because the house was foreclosed on thanks to my lovely ex, basic utilities, 1 credit card, and a daughter who just started college in the fall and there is NO WAY I could live off of just child support…I just don’t get it! What will these women do when the child support stops?
What does this mean… Potential income can not be imputed if the parent is caring for a child under the age of 3 and for whom child support is being determined (Paragraph 3 under the Income section)? Would this apply to me if I have a child with my ex that is 10 years old and she has recently had another child with her current husband? She quit her job (before she was ever pregnant with her newest addition) to get more child support from me with no reasonable cause and they imputed income on her. Now she has heard that if she has a child under three she can take me back to court and have her imputed income dropped so she will recieve more child support. Can her imputed income be dropped just because she has a new baby by current husband since the child under three is not the one child support is be figured?
Can any one clarify this for me and any suggestions on what I can do?