If I Get a Raise, Will My Child Support Increase?

Life happens, and because of this, a child support order is not permanent. Sometimes a parent may find themselves in a new job where they are earning more or they may receive a significant raise at work. On the other hand, sometimes circumstances go the other way, and a parent may find they’ve lost their job. Whatever your circumstances are, if you have a child support order in place there is definitely a chance that at some point it will need to be modified.

To modify a child support order, there has to be at least a 10% difference in the existing child support order and there is no mechanism in place that automatically changes a child support order when a change in circumstance occurs. If a change needs to be reviewed, you need to file a motion to modify child support with the court.

The short answer? You may have to pay more if you receive a raise at work. However, this is not necessarily a given. The difference between the existing child support order and the potential new one has to be greater than 10%. The court also needs to receive a motion to modify child support before the order will change.

Some other situations where child support may be modified:

  • A change in child custody and visitation
  • Reduced child care costs as a child gets older
  • Emancipation of a child

If you believe you need help with a modification of child support, contact the attorneys at Divorce Matters. We also offer a free child support and maintenance calculator app if you need help determining potential changes, our app can be found in both the Google Play and iOS stores, click here to learn more.

Navigating a Divorce with Kids

Conor Stewartson

How Do Kids Change Divorce?

When couples have children, a divorce becomes much more complicated. Even if you and your spouse are committed to an amicable separation, you will need to think through your post-divorce future for the sake of your children. There are many factors that you must consider when going through a divorce with kids, including co-parenting plans and custody arrangements, child support, emotional support, and even maintaining respect toward your former spouse in front of your child to contribute to a healthier family dynamic. Divorce Matters® is here to offer help in each of these areas so you experience a more seamless divorce.

Come Up with a Parenting Plan

Children need continuing contact with both parents, and a judge will want to see a detailed parenting plan. At the outset, you should realize that a 50/50 custody split might not be realistic for several reasons: an imbalance of parental care, one or both of you deciding to move, or if one of you has a past criminal record. However, you should work toward the fairest custody plan that looks out for the best interest of the child or children.

If one of you decides to move far enough that it could prompt school changes, you will need to reevaluate your agreement and settle it with the court. This will involve who and where the child or children will live with during the school year and decide:

  • When the non-custodial parent will have weekend visitation
  • How the children will split their summer vacations
  • Who the children will spend holidays and birthdays with
  • How you will transport the children to and from visitation, as well as when they will be dropped off and picked up

The more detailed your parenting plan, the better. Deciding on issues ahead of time can reduce conflict later on. Divorce with kids will also require determining parental rights and obligations to ensure both sides are contributing fairly to the child’s life. This includes setting boundaries on both sides so the child will not take advantage of one parent or “choose” a favorite. Both parents must have clear rules the child must follow to allow for a healthy relationship in the family and promote an equal partnership. If you need help developing a parenting plan, you can consult with one of our divorce attorneys who can advise you on how to achieve the best possible outcome for you and your child.

Discuss Child Support

Every child has a right to enjoy the fruits of his or her parent’s income and live with a parent who can take care of them financially. For this reason, child support is a right. Child support includes things like health insurance, medical expenses, and child care in addition to the monthly overall care costs. Depending on your situation, you might need to pay extra to cover these costs.

Hiring a child custody lawyer to help with a divorce with kids is crucial, whether you are the paying or receiving parent. Many factors contribute to how child support is paid that you will want professional assistance with, such as income, overnight stays with each parent, extraordinary and ongoing expenses – and who has paid most of them – and much more. You don’t want one stone unturned. This is why parents going through a divorce with kids should partner with a firm like Divorce Matters® that will look at the total cost of raising the children, both of their gross income, and identify how child support should be paid out or received.

The state has a formula it uses to calculate child support. We make this easy to calculate with our free child support and maintenance calculator. You can download this free tool in the Google and Apple app stores.

Stay on Your Best Behavior

It is perfectly understandable to feel depressed, angry, and frustrated during a divorce with kids. After all, a relationship you thought would last for life is now crashing to the ground. Nevertheless, parents must remain amicable if they want their children to flourish. This means never bad-mouthing your spouse when the children are around or trying to turn your children against their mother or father. Furthermore, trying to alienate your children could be used against you when it comes to determining custody.

You must also keep communication consistent between you and your ex, as well as your child. Allow the child to speak to the other parent when they choose to maintain a healthy relationship. If you ever do need to communicate with your former spouse, the child should never see you fighting over them or disrespecting one another. This is not conducive to a healthy relationship and can later result in resentment from the child toward you or your former spouse.

Emotional Impact on Children

While you are going through a divorce with kids, your child will be feeling a mix of emotions – anger, sadness, confusion, and even guilt. It is important to reassure them that your relationship ending has nothing to do with them, and it may even improve your relationship as a family unit. Do not use them as messengers between the two of you, and under no circumstance should you put them in the middle of your conflicts or use them as collateral. Effective communication and setting boundaries as parents are crucial to the mental health of the child. Continue to reassure them that they are loved and allow open communication so they can express their emotions freely. It could be beneficial to seek out a neutral party like a counselor or therapist for your child to remove any bias and allow them to speak about the situation.

Finally, allow you and your child time to adjust to this new normal. This is a new journey for all of you, so allow yourselves to be open and flexible, and have a safe space to grieve the divorce. You also need to get used to the new environment with one less parent in the house (potentially impacting pre- and post-school routines or weekend plans). It is important to adjust and even establish new traditions for you and your child to restore a sense of normalcy.

When it comes to introducing new partners, take ample time to allow you and your child to get over the divorce before involving any new romantic partners. Not only could this be confusing to the child, but it could hurt your relationship with them. Do not try to force a relationship with this new partner, validate their feelings, and do not involve them in the co-parenting responsibilities. New partners can be a slippery slope, so only enter into a relationship with one when you are truly ready and when you know they will fit in with your children.

Child Support Modification

To make a child support modification in Colorado, courts require a “substantial and continuing” change. This change can include a change in income, especially if you get a raise or lose your job. You can request changes through an annual assessment or through a general motion to modify your agreement. Modifications are possible, but the circumstances need to be substantial enough to call for a change.

Calm Guidance You Can Trust

Divorce with kids is an emotionally turbulent and challenging time. You need trusted, experienced divorce lawyers in your corner. At Divorce Matters®, our team has the knowledge and experience to help guide you through the process step by step. We only want what is best for you and your family. Please contact us today to schedule your comprehensive, initial consultation.

Child Support and the Gig Economy

Avoiding child support payments is nothing new, but the way people try to hide their income is new. There are tried and true methods for obtaining child support. Obtaining tax refunds, garnishing wages and bank accounts are straightforward methods that work. However, these tactics rarely work for the gig economy. The gig economy is a fancy way of saying the self-employed economy. Another word that people like to use is freelancing, but it all means self-employed.

Why Being Self-Employed Makes It Harder for Child Support Collections

The self-employed rarely have tax refunds, and they almost always owe taxes at the end of the year.  They can time their payments to the IRS to avoid ever having a tax refund. The self-employed often don’t have actual wages to garnish and bank accounts are often in a company name, not subject to garnishment for individual child support obligations. The self-employed are sometimes paid in cash which is almost impossible to trace or collect.  For these reasons, the self-employed have always posed a problem for child support collections.

One of the obstacles with the gig economy is that when someone is self-employed is not easy to track their earnings or income. Employers report new hires to data bases for child support enforcement, but employers do not have to report contractors. This means that companies such as Uber or Airbnb do not report to these databases because they hire contractors and not employees.

How Can You Overcome This Obstacle?

Payments to contractors can be garnished once they are discovered and a private family law attorney can assist in collecting. But often the self- employed person moves onto a new gig once the old gig is discovered and garnished. The new gig economy poses new problems for child support enforcement and as the gig economy grows, so does the problem of child support collections.

Contact A Divorce Matters Attorney For Help With Obtaining Child Support

If you have questions, contact us here at Divorce Matters. We can help you try and recover child support if you find yourself on the wrong side of the new gig economy. Visit us at www-divorce-matters.com for more information.

Paying Child Support When You’re Not the Father

Below, you will find three unusual ways to pay child support in Colorado even though you’re not the biological father. Paternity can be established without a genetic test proving who the biological father, here’s how paternity can be established by law in Colorado.

1. You Told the World You Were the Father

This sounds strange, but the reality is you could become the legal father if you held yourself out as the father. The law states you become the legal father if a man “receives the child into his home and openly holds the child out as his own natural child.” This is a father by “conduct and words.”

2. You Made An “Attempt” to Marry the Mother Before the Child Was Born and the Child Was Born Within 300 Days of the Ending of Cohabitation.

The law is not so clear on what an “attempted marriage” is and how you need to fumble the ball, but an attempt could be good enough. You must have lived with the mother, attempted to marry the mother and have the child born within 300 days of moving out.  The idea is that just because some technicality, or tornado or other crazy event kept the marriage from being formalized should not stop the law from “presuming” who the father is.

3. You’re Married

Even if you’re not the biological father, the law presumes you are the father if the child was born while you were married to the mother. Yes, the law presumes faithfulness and biology.

Get in Touch With a Professional Denver Paternity Lawyer

Let our team of established paternity lawyers in Denver help you with paternity, child support, and any other family law cases today! These kinds of things can be confusing and stressful, we’ll help you along the way.

5 Things To Know About Child Support Garnishments

  1. Child support garnishments can be sent to an employer to attach wages. For wage attachment, Child support garnishments go to the front of the line above all other garnishments except IRS liens.
  2. Wages can be garnished up to 65% of “disposable income.” That’s after-tax income. So the employer first reduces wages by taxes and then by child support.
  3. An employer can deduct an additional $5 per paycheck as an administrative fee. This does not reduce child support but further reduces the employees pay.
  4. Child support garnishments can be taken from Workers’ Compensation benefits and can garnish workers’ compensation settlements.
  5. A private attorney can pursue past due child support on a percentage fee basis.

How To Give Your Child Emotional Support Through Divorce

Different colored hands with hearts on the palm

If you are facing divorce or perhaps already going through it, then you know that no matter what happens it will be something that affects your children. This is perfectly normal and there is a natural grieving process that they will go through as they deal with their emotions around your separation. There are ways you can help make sure that your children have the support they need during this time.

The first is to make sure that they know you are there if they need to talk about it. The urge to keep it hush-hush can be strong if you feel like avoiding the topic would be less painful for them. However, letting them know you are available to talk to about it without forcing them to gives them the space they need to process their emotions and feel safe enough to approach you if they have questions or need to share something.

One of the best things you can do for your kids is to try and work out an amicable and conflict free co-parenting plan. Of course, this isn’t always an option depending on the individual situation but if you can work to settle your differences with your ex-spouse for the sake of your kids it will go a really long way in helping them deal with their emotions about the divorce.

Finally, don’t be afraid to get yourself and/or your child professional help if either of you find that you continue to struggle with the divorce in a manner that seems unhealthy. Talking to a counselor or therapist is a great way to learn the tools needed to cope with the stress associated with divorce.

What Do I Do If My Ex Is Not Paying Child Support?

What do you do if your ex-spouse refuses to make court-ordered child support payments?

Being a single parent can be tough, and child support payments help the parent keep bills and childcare costs under control. So it can be devastating when one party refuses to make those payments.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to force your ex-spouse’s hand. The state takes child support very seriously, and those who do not pay it can suffer some pretty serious consequences. Not paying can lead to long-term financial ruin.

Consequences of Failure to Pay Child Support

Every month that child support is not paid, a judgment is issued against the non-paying party. These judgments, while destroying the party’s credit, build interest at a rate of 12% annually, compounding every month. This means that the longer the person waits to pay, the more they will owe ”“ it is not difficult for a monthly sum of a few hundred dollars to rapidly snowball into a ten thousand or even hundred-thousand-dollar problem.Additionally, child support cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, and the statute of limitations on child support judgments is 20 years. It can’t just be swept under the rug and ignored.

If the financial consequences are not able to convince the party to pay up, there are things we can do to help. The non-paying party can be held in contempt of court, which can put them in jail for up to 180 days and fine them for noncompliance. The courts can order wage garnishments on the nonpaying party, up to 65 percent of that person’s wages. The courts can also attach liens to property owned by the nonpaying party. In short ”“ it’s never worth it to withhold child support payments.

If your ex-spouse is withholding child support payments, our Denver divorce attorneys can help you bring legal action against your ex-spouse.

My Ex Got A Raise, How Does This Affect My Child Support?

So your ex got a great promotion or a cushy new job. We’re sure you’re thrilled for ex-husband’s or ex-wife’s success, but the most relevant question for you is: how does this raise or promotion affect your child support payments?

In family law, whenever a divorced person or parent goes through a major change in their life (like getting a vastly higher paying job or losing a job), this is known as a “substantial change in circumstance.” When this substantial change in circumstance occurs, that means it may be time to modify the child support or alimony payments (“maintenance” in Colorado).

Unfortunately, in our experience, when one ex gets a raise, he or she will not start upping the child support payments out of the kindness of his or her heart. Usually, the other party must take legal action to make this happen.

How Can I Get My Ex To Modify Child Support?

Essentially, you have to file a suit against your spouse known as a post decree modification of child support. When a raise or promotion is involved, you can only file this suit if the amount of child support you receive would increase by 10 percent or more. Other instances where you can attempt to modify child support include:

  • Losing a job
  • Increase in the cost of raising the child (daycare or medical expenses)
  • Emancipation of a child
  • Change in the amount of overnight visits the child has with the other parent

Also, if three years have passed since your last review, you can request a new one.

Keep in mind that child support modifications are retroactive to the date of filing the motion. This means if your ex got a raise in April, you file the motion in May and it becomes finalized in June, you would only get the updated amount retroactive to May, not April. This means that the sooner you file the petition, the better.

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How Can I Calculate Colorado Child Support Payments?

Figuring out your payments for Colorado child support can be extremely confusing. To make sure everything is done correctly, contact an attorney or download our spousal maintenance and child support calculator app. It’s free, and you can easily get a good idea of how much you can expect to pay or receive given your current circumstances.

Our Denver child support attorneys can explain how complex family laws apply to your situation, and fight to ensure that you are treated fairly.

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Check Out Divorce Matters® Colorado Alimony Calculator and Child Support App

Hello, readers!

We have an exciting new announcement that may help you and your spouse figure out some of the logistics of your divorce, and you can access it directly from your Android or iOS device. Our law firm has published a free app, which you can find the App Store under the name “Divorce Matters Colorado Spousal Maintenance and Child Support Calculator.”

What Does the Colorado Alimony Calculator Do?

It does exactly what it sounds like it does: it is a simple, portable method of quickly estimating how much you might be expected to pay for spousal maintenance (alimony) and child support if you are involved in a divorce. Knowing is half the battle – our app provides a thorough, inclusive analysis of your financial situation and applies Colorado laws and statutes to help provide you with an accurate estimate of how much you or your spouse will be expected to pay, based on factors like gross monthly income, length of your marriage and a breakdown of costs you might not realize can affect alimony and child support payments. If you’re looking for a reliable Colorado alimony calculator or child support calculator, this app is a great place to start. Knowing what to expect ahead of time can help relieve some of the stress and uncertainty of an upcoming divorce.

You Still Need an Attorney

While our Colorado alimony calculator is an excellent tool, it’s just the beginning. Divorce is not just an emotional process – it’s a financial one. Understanding what your future might look like in terms of income, support obligations, and expenses is critical for long-term stability. Our app gives you a head start by offering a general idea of your support obligations, which can help you begin planning responsibly and realistically.

Whether you’re the spouse who may be ordered to pay support or the one who may receive it, having a ballpark estimate helps you prepare. You can begin adjusting your budget, understanding your post-divorce lifestyle, and even negotiating more confidently if you’re pursuing a collaborative or mediated divorce. Many people are caught off guard by the financial implications of divorce. Using our Colorado alimony calculator early in the process can help avoid that.

Still, while technology can be empowering, it can’t replace personalized legal advice. Colorado’s child support and spousal maintenance guidelines are complex – and the final determination involves more than just numbers. A court may take into account factors like parenting time schedules, the specific needs of a child, each spouse’s financial contributions to the household, and potential for future income. That’s why even if you use the calculator, it’s essential to consult with an experienced attorney before making any assumptions or agreements.

Your Financial Future After Divorce

At Divorce Matters®, we often hear from clients who were surprised by the final outcome of their divorce settlement or support order – often because they relied solely on general tools or informal advice from friends or online forums. While our Colorado alimony calculator and child support calculator provides a helpful starting point, an attorney can help you understand what adjustments might apply in your unique situation, and whether the court might deviate from standard guidelines based on special circumstances.

Additionally, an attorney can ensure you’re not missing key financial elements – like shared debts, tax implications, or hidden income – that can affect the fairness of your final agreement. They can also advocate for temporary support during the divorce process, which can make a significant difference in your day-to-day life.

Another reason to focus on the financial aspects of your divorce early and often is because these decisions have long-term implications. For example, if you’re the recipient of spousal maintenance, understanding how long it will last and how it’s calculated can help you plan your return to the workforce. If you’re paying support, it’s important to know what’s expected of you – and what steps to take if your circumstances change in the future.

Planning ahead also helps reduce conflict. When both parties understand how support is calculated and why, it becomes easier to have productive conversations about fairness. This can lead to more amicable negotiations, fewer court appearances, and better outcomes for everyone involved – especially children.

Modifications to Payments

Our Colorado alimony calculator is also helpful if you’re already divorced but believe your support order may need to be modified. Life happens—jobs change, incomes shift, and parenting responsibilities evolve. We can help you with through a variety of scenarios and consider whether it’s time to file for a modification.

At Divorce Matters®, we believe in giving our clients the tools and education they need to feel confident in their decisions. The Colorado Spousal Maintenance and Child Support Calculator app is just one of the many ways we support individuals before, during, and after their divorce. We proudly serve clients throughout Colorado, including Denver, Colorado Springs, Castle Rock, Fort Collins, Centennial, Boulder, and beyond.

Whether you’re just beginning to explore your options or you’re facing a complex support dispute, we’re here to help. Contact us today to schedule a consultation, and let us guide you through the legal and financial realities of your case with clarity and care.

App Requirements:

If you are on iOS, our app is supported by iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch running iOS 8.0 or later.

Our Denver divorce attorneys seek to provide the premier client experiences for divorcing couples in Colorado.

Need to Simplify the Child Support Process? There’s an App for That!

It’s amazing how quickly technology is progressing these days ”“ self-driving cars, astronauts taking selfies on the International Space Station, hydrophobic clothing ”“ so it shouldn’t surprise us to discover that when it comes to child support, there’s an app for that.

Ittavi’s SupportPay service allows divorcees to manage child support payments in a streamlined, hassle-free way. In North America, over $200 billion is exchanged for child support. Using SupportPay allows parents private, secure, transparent and automated payments for sharing expenses and managing child support. Medical, child care, education and other expenses, including ones that are not addressed by court order or state-run payment programs, can all be managed through Ittavi’s online service or on the SupportPay app.

Divorce is the easy part, says founder Sheri Atwood. There’s no such thing as a clean break from your ex when a kid is involved ”“ you are tethered to them financially. One parent owes money for shoes, the other for guitar lessons. Who paid for the doctor? The haircut? The back-and-forth can be strenuous, and SupportPay aims to simplify the process.

The best part is that it is totally transparent. You will know how much is being spent by both you and your ex-spouse. You will always know when child support payments are coming up. And if you and your ex are on sour terms, putting a screen between you and your ex can help remove emotion from the picture.

Divorce Matters ”“ Denver Family Law Attorneys