Understanding Your Rights and Responsibilities: Texas Child Support Explained
Texas Child Support is money paid by one parent to the other for their children. It is based on the concept that parents are responsible for financially supporting their children.
The Texas Child Support Program encourages responsible parenting and family self-sufficiency by establishing, modifying, and enforcing child support orders. In addition, the program helps families locate parents who owe support and assists with visitation matters. The Child Support Offices are located throughout the state, and their phone numbers are listed on the Child Support Offices web page. The amount of child support paid or received is based on the state’s current guidelines, which are reviewed every four years. The guidelines are based on the percentage of a noncustodial parent’s net resources, including earnings, benefits, and other factors.
OCSS’s Portal provides a secure Internet connection for states, tribes, counties, employers, financial institutions, and other authorized users to share information about their cases with each other and with OCSS staff. To access the Portal, you must have a valid member ID and PIN. You can obtain your member ID and PIN by creating an online profile or logging in with your existing profile. You can also find more information about the Portal by viewing a help video.
OCSS’s Portal provides a secure Internet connection for states, tribes, counties, employers, financial institutions, and other authorized users to share information about their cases with each other and with OCSS staff. To access the Portal, you must have a valid member ID and PIN. You can obtain your member ID and PIN by creating an online profile or logging in with your existing profile. You can also find more information about the Portal by viewing a help video.
The Texas Child Support Guidelines
The Texas child support guidelines are based on the noncustodial parent’s net income percentage. The guidelines consider all forms of income, including wage and salary income (including commissions, overtime pay, tips, bonuses, and profit sharing), self-employment income, interest income, dividends, royalty income, rental income, and business and professional license fees.
A judge can order either parent to provide health insurance for the children. They can also order a parent to pay routine uninsured medical expenses, such as co-pays and deductibles.
The obligee, or the parent receiving child support, can receive payments through direct deposit to their bank account or a reloadable Texas Payment Card. The state disbursement unit can provide more information about how to make and receive child support payments. The amount of child support paid is not tax deductible for the person who pays it and is not taxed by the recipient.
Key Points
When a child support case is established in Texas, the court will establish a basic minimum amount of child support. This is based on the noncustodial parent’s income and can be modified by considering many different factors. Generally, child support is meant to cover the basic needs of children in a family, including food, clothing, and shelter. It is also meant to help a child maintain the same standard of living as they enjoyed before their parents divorced or separated. However, it is important to remember that the court may also deviate from these guidelines if the evidence is sufficient to do so.
Some special circumstances can require financial provisions surpassing state guidelines’ typical benchmarks. These special circumstances include the cost of private education, expensive medical treatment, the premiums for quality health insurance, and the extracurricular activities that many children enjoy. A skilled and experienced family law attorney can help a client to determine whether these or other factors warrant a child support amount that exceeds the basic minimum established by Texas statute.
