MA Child Support Guidelines

mass.gov, Apr 11, 2006

The child support guidelines are formulated to be used by the justices of the Trial Court, whether the parents of the children are married or unmarried, in setting temporary, permanent or final orders for current child support, in deciding whether to approve agreements for child support, and in deciding cases that are before the court to modify existing orders. A modification may be allowed upon showing a discrepancy of 20% or more between an established order and a proposed new order calculated under these guidelines.

The presumption establishing a proposed new order may be rebutted in cases where the amount of support required under the guidelines is due to the fact that the amount of the current support order resulted from a rebuttal of the guideline amount and there has not been a change in the circumstances which resulted in a rebuttal of the guideline amount. The guidelines are intended to be of assistance to members of the bar and to litigants in determining what level of payment would be expected of them given the relative income levels of the parties. In all orders where an order for child support is requested, a guideline worksheet must be filled out, regardless of the income of the parties.

In establishing these guidelines, due consideration has been given to the following principles:

1) To minimize the economic impact on the child of family breakup;
2) To encourage joint parental responsibility for child support in proportion to, or as a percentage of income;
3) To provide the standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the family been intact;
4) To meet the child's survival needs in the first instance, but to the extent either parent enjoys a higher standard of living to entitle the child to enjoy that higher standard;
5) To protect a subsistence level of income of parents at the low end of the income range whether or not they are on public assistance;
6) To take into account the non-monetary contributions of both the custodial and non-custodial parents;
7) To minimize problems of proof for the parties and of administration for the courts; and 
8) To allow for orders and wage assignments that can be adjusted as income increases or decreases.