All you Need to Know about 2017 Child Support Law
Governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner, signed the Public Act 99-0764 into law on August 12, 2016. It changed the way child support is calculated by Illinois family courts. This new law has been put into effect as of July 1, 2017 after which two sections of the IMDMA have been modified, i.e., 750 ILCS 5/510 and 750 ILCS 5/505.
Why Were Changes to Illinois Child Support Law Made?
For the past 30 years, the percentage model had been used for child support determinations. However, the limitation of that model is it only takes into account the supporting parent’s income, instead of both parent’s net income.
The 2017 law has opted for the income shares model that considers the combined household income of parents that they had at the time they were married to calculate child support. Moreover, with the recent changes made to the IMDMA regarding allocation of parental responsibilities and parenting time, this change was somewhat inevitable. The good thing is that income shares model is not new, as it is used in a majority of other states.
Calculating Child Support Under the New Law
Under the new statute, courts will take into account three factors for determining child support payments:
- Basic Child Support Obligations: The combined household net income will be determined by calculating the net income of each parent, along with the number of children to come up with the basic child obligations from the income share table.
- Additional Expenses: These include expenses for child’s care, medical insurance, education, and extracurricular activities, which are generally decided by the court based on the individual circumstances of the case.
- Parenting Time: In the light of recent changes to the IMDMA, both parents will be allotted parenting time. Based on the amount of parenting time each parent gets, it will be decided who will receive child support payments.
Child Support Calculation in Shared Parenting Situations
In case of shared parenting, i.e. 50/50 parenting time, special rules are applied. If a child is in the physical care of a parent for at least 146 overnights in a year, the basic child support obligation will be multiplied by 1.5 in order to determine the shared care obligation. After that, the individual child support obligation is determined by multiplying the portion of shared care obligation of each parent by the percentage of total parenting time the parent has been allocated with the child(ren). The parent with more child support owed is required to pay the difference between the individual amounts to the other parent.
If your child support order was issued before July 1, 2017, you will not be affected significantly by the 2017 child support law. If you are planning to get divorced and wondering how this change in child support law will affect your case, you should talk to an experienced family law attorney to understand your situation. For more information, contact the Law Office of Fedor Kozlov, P.C. today at (847) 241-1299 to schedule a free initial consultation.