:jawdrop: You're paying double our CS. I am 100% in support of your response that with that amount of money the child's mother had best be saving for college.

The beauty of our situation was that CS was only reviewed when one or the other party initiated a review. That 3yr mandatory review is a killer. We got hit by an outstanding 401K loan last year but fortunately we only owed a few $hundred on the loan itself and paid it off before the penalty date when I was put on upaid LOA by my former employer.

When the market is stagnant a 401K loan is not a bad thing since you are paying yourself the interest but if you catch a market upswing and that money is not in play it can be expensive. Even more expensive if circumstances force a shift of that loan to an early withdrawal.

My condolences on having that hit. Your guidance on minimizing the financial burden on your own family is not a bad way to go and if I were in your circumstances I would seriously consider doing the same thing. It is too bad that financial capacity to support the child is not the primary or even only hurdle to establish physical custody. I for one think that if one parent is self supporting and the other is a long term entitlement mininion that custody should default to the self supporting financially responsible parent... ceteris paribus of course.

When we met my bride was a CP single teen mom to a 15mo old. Our half of the blended family picture was always the custodial half. CS was a pittance for 9 years ($110/mo for 2yrs then $133/mo for 7yrs) before jumping to $785/mo for a year then down to $385/mo for 8yrs.

We only initiated one CS modification which was at year 7 in response to my getting RIF'd in the semiconductor industry collapse and in response to a particularly toxic behavioral stretch from the SpermClan. Due to my senior level position my severance was 42wks of pay on top of the salary I had earned for the first 9mos of the year and I had to cash out my stock options so though I had no income my AGI for the year I was RIF'd was significantly elevated. I was able to counter that by showing my only income for the year we filed for the CS mod was unemployment. The Judge had trouble masticating my income from the prior year but fortuneately SParent income is not considered for setting CS and she nailed the SpermIdiot according to the state CS calculation structure rather overly mitigating a long delayed CS increase due to my severance elevated income. The Judge did continue the maximum income credit for the SpermIdiot which was ordered during the first Custody/Visitation/Support battle two weeks after we married.

As that idiot in a stupid black robe swinging his Fisher-Price wooden hammer said: "Stepdad makes a significant income and BioDad should not be punished by being forced to support an artificially elevated lifestyle for the child." And then awarded the DipShitIot the maximum $1000/mo reduction in his income for CS calculation purposes. It only lowered the awarded CS level by $50/mo but that POS benefiting even one penny from my income still pisses me off to this day.

After the increase they pretty much kept themselves tucked securely in their hole under the slime covered rock at the bottom of their shallow and polluted gene pool. The threat of an upward modification as well as the hanging threat we kept highlighted over the heads of changing our case from SpermLand to Texas where our family including SS were long time residents kept the opposition mostly under control. Had we shifted venue to Texas CS would have gone up to nearly $2K/mo according to our attorney. That is a big stick to swing in necessary. We never invoked the Texas option because though CS would have skyrocketed visitation would have doubled and no amount of money was worth forcing our kid to spend any more time with the shallow and polluted end of his gene pool than necessary.

I hope that you and DH can find a way to end the subsidy you provide to the dirtbag BM and her scummy SO, etc.....

Actually, taking a loan from your 401K is not uncommon and is not necessarily the same thing as taking money out as a withdrawal. It can be the quickest, simplest, lowest-cost way to get the cash you need. Receiving a loan is not a taxable event unless the loan limits and repayment rules are violated, and it has no impact on your credit rating. Assuming you pay back a short-term loan on schedule, it usually will have little impact on your retirement savings progress. In fact, in some cases, it can even have a positive impact.

What caused the problem here was her DH being let go from his company and that triggered a requirement that he either repay the loan in full, immediately, or it is treated as an early distribution which is subject to penalties etc. That was not a planned event.

I do understand the logic that she is having a problem with though. If they counted the GROSS income he earned that included amounts he previously had contributed to his 401k then it seems that they should NOT be adding that same income in again when he does not repay the 401K.

I might try to talk to someone more familiar with their specific rules to understand why the money is able to be counted twice.

What you are saying about school costs may be on track though. There is no reason why they can't set an expectation that the child start saving for their own education and look into planning for how it will be paid for. Maybe the kid goes to Community college a couple years while living at home and saving for the last 2 years at a university. If they are strapped for cash, it doesn't seem sensible to go into debt for an expense like college.

Wow that is crazy. I had to cash in 401K to pay for my divorce. I had thought i had taken enough taxes out and still had to pay. That is a crazy amount to have to pay for 1 child, especially where there is no daycare involved.

At least in my state, 401K contributions are NOT calculated as income during a support review while one is working and putting money into the 401K account. Once you take it out, as you learned, it becomes taxable income, and at that point, it does count as income in a support review.

Your husband didn't take the hit twice, but if I were you, I would have him contact the Support Specialist who did the review for a more thorough explanation. Alternatively, you could object to the Recommendation and go in front of the Referee/Judge.

Good luck - it's a shitty situation.

OP - your edit says he went from a job paying less to a job paying more in six weeks time.

Now I am confused....if he was making more money, shouldn't the support number increase???

I would have loved to have had more than 1 child but we could not afford to have more kids. Kids/daycare are all so expensive. That said it does not take $2250.00 a month to raise your average kid. You should dispute the inclusion of the 401K in the calculations.