Lying about income to avoid CS
Does anyone have any experience with this?
DH and BM have finally agreed on a schedule so now CS has to be calculated. BM has quit jobs, worked under the table, taken lower paying jobs...all to avoid paying CS. She is now claiming that she does not work. She has told the court she does not work, put in zero on the motion paperwork under income, and keeps telling DH she does not work. But somehow she has had enough money to either fly or rent a car to drive 10 hours up to our area every other week to exercise visitation (which will stop as soon as the court issues its decision tomorrow..lol). Also, child support has her listed as working at a company since February and they sent in garnishment paperwork, but haven't heard anything back yet. And if you google her, she comes up as an employee of the company with the address and business number listed.
She has already told DH she is not going to submit any financial info when the court asks her. She is going to draw this out as long as possible and I wouldn't be surprised if she quits her job. So, has anyone dealt with something like this before? What does the court do when someone is lying about being employed?
Yes, I was looking at our
Yes, I was looking at our state's laws yesterday and one of the options was to impute her income...but another was to just assign her minimum wage. The courts in state are absolutely ridiculous. They have let her get away with murder. If they assign her income as minimum wage, he'll probably have to end up paying her, even while we know she is working!
DH doesn't have an attorney.
DH doesn't have an attorney. Since he normally has to support them 100%, he does not want to rack up attorney bills fighting BM. But maybe he can keep pressing the issue with the judge to do something like this.
Yeah...we've been thinking
Yeah...we've been thinking that. Things seem so cut and dry in his case, but he has to fight tooth and nail everytime they go to court, despite the fact that the has always taken care of them.
Oh yes. We have dealt with it
Oh yes.
We have dealt with it from both ends.
My SS's SpermIdiot is notorious for being under employed in an attempt to minimize his CS obligation. It backfired on him. Since he refused to provide income information we provided it for him. We had a PI investigate him including video evidence of under the table cash payments, we provided the courts with his employment information, tax return information, state plumbing license number, information on the earnings distribution for the county where he lives and works, evidence that he lives rent free in a property owned by SpermGrandMa and SpermGrandPa, evidence that the SpermGPs pay his CS for my son, raise his younger three out of wedlock spawn by two other mothers in their home with no support from him, and that the SpermGPs pay the visitation travel costs that the CO stipulates that the SpermIdiot should pay.
His CS went up by nearly 500%. The courts ruled that his income potential was much higher than his documented income and set CS commensurate with his earning potential rather than his documented earnings.
I have also refused to provide my income information to the court since the law clearly states that a StepParent's income is not to be considered in calculating CS.
Ultimately I have provided my income but not before having a few knock down drag out arguments with the judges and being threatened with contempt.
The courts have repeatedly ruled that "since StepDad makes a significant income that provides an artificial standard of living for the child BioDad should not be punished by having to contribute to the artificial standard of living." the courts have given SpermIdiot a $1000 per month income credit to lower his CS due to my income. Other than the principle that he benefits at all from my income it really is no big deal. The income credit only lowers his CS by $50/mo.
The BM in your situation will likely find that her blatant attempts to manipulate her employment to reduce CS will backfire and she will end up paying more than if she just provided her actual income.
Fry her ass.
Good luck.
Hi Rags, Did you do this with
Hi Rags,
Did you do this with the help of a lawyer? I'm wondering if DH can do this himself. He actually found out through a simple Google search that she has just obtained a license to sell insurance and her license numbers are listed as well.
The last thing he wants is for them to assign her minimum wage income because he will most likely have to pay her and wait forever to get back into court when she stops exercising visitation like she always does.
This round we did primarily
This round we did primarily ourselves.
We met with our attorney who helped us map out our strategy then we executed all of the research, documentation, filings and hearings ourselves.
When we needed official communication our attorney wrote the nasty letters to the SpermClan on law firm letter head.
His support did not cost all that much. A few hundred dollars. His help was much less expensive than the ~$10K we spent with our first worthless POS lawyer.
You can subpoena her tax records which will show her income, be prepared to provide yours in a tit for tat. The Admin Law Judge will likely require that your DH and BM provide income information as well as living expense information. Each side will likely be required to provide copies to the other or the court will provide copies to the opposing sides.
We used the PI primarily to get video evidence of the SpermIdiot getting paid cash under the table. He has no bank accounts “I don’t believe in banks” and cashes his checks at check cashing places and operates only with cash since he thinks it helps hide his income.
We also requested the SpermIdiot half sibs school records to show that they attended school in the district where the SpermGrandParents lived and not in the district where the SpermIdiot lived. The PI also provided reports and video of the three younger SpermIdiot spawn living at SpermGrandMa's rather than at their SpermDonors home.
When they made a motion to have my income used in the calculation of CS in order to lower the CS obligation owed by the SpermIdito for my SS, we moved to have the SpermGrandParent's income added to the SpermIdiots to increase CS since he lives rent free in a home that they own, they pay his CS for my SS, they pay the visitation travel costs for my SS, they raise the three younger spawn in their home and give the SpermIdiot cars.
The judge ruled that their income could be included with his in the calculation of CS but chose not to actually do it. None the less it scared the shit out of them and we used it repeatedly over the subsequent years to shut them up and keep them under control.
We found the SpermIdiot’s plumbing license number and records which we used to drive his considered income up significantly above the $15/hr he was claiming. The judge set his income at the ~$25-30/hr range that we recommended based on the county wage statistics that we found in our research.
You may be able to do the same with BMs insurance license information.
We made sure to be very well informed on the CO, the supplemental rules for the county with jurisdiction over the CO, and state rules and laws as well as any useful Federal laws and information.
Interestingly as the CPs we had to submit reams of information and documentation and as the NCP the SpermIdiot only had to submit two dozen or so pages. Some of what we submitted was our research on him since he refused to provide any information on his income.
As I said in my early response, the initial ruling was an increase of ~500% in CS though eventually he whined and cried repeatedly until nearly a year later his CS was reduced to a level ~350% of the original level.
Either way ….. we kicked his ass.
Zero tolerance is what we finally settled on as our primary SpermClan interface strategy. We kept the files close at hand, the CO rolled up and ready to smack them with it any time they even thought about getting stupid.
Our philosophy was that our son had a right to equity access to his BioDad’s and the SpermClan’s income regardless of how many out-of-wedlock spawn the man cranked out. It was in our son’s best interest to never have to hear that his SpermIdiot did not care enough to support him so we forced the SpermClan to support out son though we never needed the money.
In reality the SpermClan really did not care but we forced them to support him.
Good luck and best regards,
We went through exactly this.
We went through exactly this. BM quit working when SD was 4 because she remarried and decided to be a SAHM. Fast forward 11 years to SD being 15 and deciding to go live with BM. BM immediately filed for child support, even though we'd had SD for the previous FOUR years and she didn't pay a penny (DH wouldn't file).
Anyway, BM worked at various part-time jobs. She was a teacher's aide at school, did product demonstrations at a grocery store, sold beauty products, and had other work. But, when we got the CS forms she claimed her income was, yep, 0. Claimed that because of that, DH should be responsible for 100% of SD's support. Whatever.
The only solution was to impute her an income. When DH and BM divorced, BM made the same amount as him. I would have liked to impute her that same income, but no dice. In our state it is standard to impute minimum wage. Instead, I got them to impute $10 an hour. I know she could make more, but her choosing NOT to work doesn't put us on the hook for EVERYTHING.
We went through a lawyer for this and all other issues related to BM.
BM doesnt work in our case
BM doesnt work in our case too. She also put N/A as an income. DH hired a vocational evaluator. That forced her to agree on settling without going to court because its a big deal. The evaluator requested her diplomas, scrips, job searches etc so she just agreed on some number to be put as an income for her which is about what she would be making if she workes.