The New Child Support Law, Is It Really so New and Different?

By Sari M. Friedman, Legal Counsel 
Fathers' Rights Association (NYS & Long Island)

Governor Pataki signed legislation effective January 1, 1998 which modify some child support rules. This article will highlight some of the more significant changes may affect you. The current law presently allows for a review of the amount of child support amounts every three years in order to determine if an increase is warranted. This review process itself is different for three categories of custodial parents:

• Custodial parents on public assistance (PA). For these parents, everything is automatic. 
  The custodial parent has no say in the process.
• Custodial parents not on PA whose support is being collected by the Support Collection Unit (SCU). 
  Parents in this group currently receive a mailing every three years advising them of their rights to have their child support 
  amount reviewed for possible increase. They must respond affirmatively if they desire this service.
• Custodial parents not on public assistance and not having support collected by SCU, are not affected by this law.

For the two groups that are affected, the SCU sends out a financial disclosure form that the non-custodial parent must fill out. Should he or she refuse, SCU is empowered to obtain the necessary information from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance (the State version of the IRS).

After receipt of the financial disclosure form, the SCU reviews the income. The triggering device for an adjustment in the amount of child support would be an increase in the paying parent's income of at least 10 percent since the amount of support was last ordered. Such an increase would require a pro-rata increase in support payments.

SCU then sends a notice of the adjusted amount to both parents. The paying parent then has 35 days to object to the new rate. In the absence of such an objection, a new order of child support is issued on the new rate. If, on the other hand, an objection is filed within 35 days, a hearing is held before a Hearing Examiner in Family Court for determination within 45 days.

The objection process can continue if either parent disagrees with the Hearing Examiner's findings. The parent can file an objection and a new hearing will be held before a Judge. But even here, if either parent disagrees with the Judge's decision, that parent can file an appeal. Before the new law, which we will discuss below, this process was repeated every three years.

The New Law

As of January 1, 1997, instead of a three year cycle, the process will now be on a two year cycle. In addition, instead of the trigger being the difference in the payer's income, the new trigger will be based on a 10 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index. The rest of the procedure remains the same.

Currently, an increase of at least ten percent in the payer's income triggered an automatic increase in child support. Under the new law, a 10% increase in the CPI by ten percent does not mean that the amount of child support you pay will increase.

The Child Support Standards Act formula must still be applied to your income.

At the risk of oversimplification, the Act states that after subtracting all Social Security, of the remainder of gross income, one pays: 17% of income for child support of one child; 25% for two children; 29% for three children; 31% for four children; and 35% for five or more children. If your income has remained unchanged, then the support you pay theoretically should remain the same.

Remember, based on economics over the past 5 to 8 years, there is a greater likely hood of earning ten percent more in income over a three year period than to have a ten percent increase in the CPI over a two year period. However, run away inflation as we had in the late 70's would completely change this last statement.

My prediction: this new legislation will cause less automatic child support increases than the present legislation unless we enter times of high inflation.

This new law takes effect on January 1, 1998. Some changes in this new Law are as follows.

New Enforcement Procedures

At present a custodial parent must petition the Courts for an Order to have SCU collect their child support for them. The new legislation allows a custodial parent to simply request SCU to collect the support for him or her.

Next, SCU gives both parents notice that they will collect the support.

Then without Court intervention, SCU now collects the support.