Child Support

The laws and regulations surrounding child support vary from state to state (i.e. your brother who lives in Alabama will pay a different amount of support for his two children than you will for yours even if the two of you make the same income).  Virginia has adopted a set of guidelines that are used to calculate the presumptively correct amount of child support.  These guidelines take into account the incomes of both parties, work-related day care expenses, health/dental care insurance premiums paid for the children and support that one parent may be paying for another child not born of the current relationship. 

The first factor in calculating support is income.  Virginia defines income as “income from all sources … income from salaries, wages, commissions, royalties, bonuses, dividends, severance pay, pensions, interest, trust income, annuities, capital gains, social security benefits…workers compensation benefits, unemployment insurance benefits, disability insurance benefits, veterans’ benefits, spousal support, rental income, gifts, prizes or awards.” (Virginia Code §20-108.2(C)).  This means any source of income you have, whether taxable or non taxable, counts toward the determination of support.  For military members this is especially significant in that your income includes your basic allowance for housing (BAH) and your basic allowance for subsistence (BAS), in addition to any specialty pay, flight pay, separation pay, or hazard pay.  For military retiree’s, although any VA disability pay cannot be divided for divorce purposes, it does count as income to you for child support purposes.  For civilians and servicemembers, bonuses received pursuant to your employment also counts as income.  For an estimated figure of what you may expect to receive as child support or what you may be expected to pay please refer to the Virginia Department of Child Support Enforcement’s (DCSE) online calculator at http://www.dss.virginia.gov/family/dcse_calc.cgi.