The Noncustodial Parent’s Gross Income To Be Applied To Child Support

csed.dc.gov, Aug 05, 2005

The core of the Guideline Formula is five Income Levels that show the percentage of the
noncustodial parent’s gross income to be applied to child support. The percentages vary
with the number of children. The percentage may be reduced if the custodial parent’s
income is above a disregarded amount that varies with the number of children and child care
costs.

The Guideline was originally adopted by the Board of The District of Columbia Superior
Court in 1987. A slightly different version of the court Guideline became legislated in 1990,

and is still in effect today. According to the 1987 documentation, “Application of the
guideline should result in the noncustodial parent being ordered to pay approximately what
he/she would have spent on the child(ren) if the family were intact, plus, if affordable, some
of the increased costs associated with the maintenance of two separate households.” Some
of the additional principles underlying the existing Guideline are: that both parents have a
legal responsibility to provide financial support to their child; the consideration of the
subsistence needs of each parent; and, application of the Guideline should be sexually nondiscriminatory.

Although it is not clear what study of child-rearing costs was used to arrive at the current
Income Levels— that is, the percentages of noncustodial parent’s income at particular
Income Levels to be applied to child support— the 1987 documentation indicates that the
economic evidence considered by the original Guideline developers showed that the
proportion of income parents devote to their children was relatively constant across income
levels up to about $75,000 per year. This is why the current Guideline is no longer
presumptive above noncustodial parent incomes of $75,000 per year. Further, the constant
percentage allowed the original Guideline developers to assume that the custodial parent
devoted the same proportion of his or her income to child support as the noncustodial
parent did without having to consider the combined income of the parents. As will be
shown later, this assumption is difficult to maintain given that all of the new measurements
of child-rearing costs indicate that the percentage of combined income devoted to childrearing costs declines as the parents’ combined income increases. (The dollar amount,
however, does increase with income.)

Another key feature of the current Guideline is that it includes an adjustment for lowincome noncustodial parents. It provides a self support reserve of $7,500 per year, which approximated the gross income equivalent of the federal poverty guidelines for one person in 1990, when the Guideline was last reviewed. The purpose of the self support reserve is to ensure that the noncustodial parent is left with enough income after payment of child support to live at least a subsistence standard of living. The first Income Level applies a minimum order amount to noncustodial parents with incomes below the self support
reserve; the next three Income Levels phase out the self support reserve; and, the highest
Income Level is presumed to represent actual child-rearing costs.