This happened to me. DH and I file jointly and when BM took him to court to increase CS, we had to provide the previous year tax return and a couple of his recent pay stubs. I fought hard to keep my information private but to no avail. I am in Illinois.

Same here-my income was shown to BM and her attorney also. The BM then showed mine and H's income to the kids (14 &12) Her favorate thing is when she thinks (and I mean thinks) something is wrong she highlites the court papers and gives them to the kids to give to us. I find many of these pages in the 14 yr olds room-she just stopped giving them to us. I hate that skids think we have all this money-they don't know better and we don't know how to respond to it.

My dh has usually only had to provide recent payment stubs. However we have never gone to court. We usually settle out of court or do mediation.

Oh yes. I got the Judge's Mighty Wong that is reserved for StepParents inserted with NO LUBRICATION. We are the custodial household for our son (my SS). However, we had to submit reems of financial information while BioDad only had to submit a few pages. Our joint income tax, etc with all of my income, investment, etc .... information.

I was not happy about this but I had no choice. I refused to submit it for quite and while, when we ended up in court in front of the judge he told me to provide my financial information I refused since as he said "I am not a party to the case so my money is not a party to the case". He told me to submit the information or go to jail on contempt of court charges until I did submit the information.

Soooooo I had to submit my information.

Once you file jointly your info becomes a matter of court record in a CS case.

It is extremely unlikely that your income will impact your DHs CS amount. In our case BioDad got a $1000/mo reduction in his income for CS calculation purposes due to "StepDad's significant income that provides an artificial life style for the child". The judge did not want BioDad to have to support an artificially elevated life style for his kid. Whatever that means. :?

As far as your tax return.... this you can easily protect. Meet with a tax planner (CPA) to work out your with holding allowances so that you under pay for the year enough to have to pay a small amount of tax on April 15th. That keeps the family law morons from taking your tax return which they can do if your DH is in arrears on CS and if you file jointly.

If you owe a few hundred $ on April 15 then CSE does not get hour money.

Good luck and best regards.

Lots of misinformation floating around about this issue:

First, in some states a stepparent's income absolutely can and is used to make a child support determination. The justification behind the statute is that the stepparent's income contributes to the household income.

In MOST states, a stepparent's income cannot technically be used to make support determination. The logic is that only the parent's are responsible for financially supporting a child.

Here's where it gets tricky....Even in states that have laws stating that only the parents' income be used for support calculations, often a stepparent's income does sway a judges decision. Judges can simply award an upward deviation and justify in one of many other ways. We all know that judges have a tremendous amount of judicial discretion when calculating support. The "guidelines" are called guidelines for a reason. Judges can make awards significantly higher or lower if they can articulate in writing a reason. And the reason might be something bogus like "in the best interest of the children". If the judge knows your household income is significantly higher, he'll find a way to justify increasing the support.

Here is how it can play out....Poor struggling single mommy vs. happily married non-custodial dad. This works even when BM is remarried! BM has no one. And a women can't possibly be expected to earn enough money to help support her kids. Evil non-custodial dad and his trampy "new" wife shouldn't have more than this poor, neglected single mommy with no one on her side. Look at her! She has lost everything! Her husband, time with her children, and now money!

This is why attorneys will often do whatever they can to avoid court. And this is why it's not always a good idea to accompany your husband to court. Even if you never say a word, it can give the appearance of "ganging up" against this poor, misunderstood single mommy just trying to take care of her kids". You can bet that a lot of attorneys advise the BM NOT to have new hubby in court in a child support case.

This is not legal advise. Your attorney may want everyone in court! I'm just relaying my personal experience and my experience working in family law. We are custodial now and get zero child support. We didn't even try. There is just too much risk for us in court.

QUESTION

So is it safe to safe if my income can be used as "HOUSEHOLD" income can the stepdad's income be used in the BM's household as well?

I feel its a violation too. We just sent our joint file to her, so I blacked out the portion on the 1st page that indicated what my salary was.

I was also horrified that BM got access to all my information. I did black out my DS's information.

However, it kind of works both ways because the judge asked BM where she worked. She said to the judge, "I do not see how that is relevant to the case." The judge just repeated her question and made the BM say where she worked and that she only worked PT by choice.

BM had to several weeks pay stubs, but dh and I had to provide tax return as dh's income was irregular. He actually submitted his most recent W2 but the judge rejected it because it was from national guard deployment-so he asked for the prior years taz return at his "normal income"-which also had my income. I don't think bm actually saw it-as dh never actually saw her papers but only a weekly calculation and dh's yearly income was adjusted into a weekly income and that is what showed up on the cs worksheet that is included with the court papers.

I've been with BF for 8 years now, we are not married yet, we're engaged. BM has tried to get my iincome several times and reading some of your posts makes me want to put off the wedding until the skids are 18. I've actually talked to a lawyer seeing if she could get my income before/after we're married and he tells me its a gray area.. I'm like what?!?!? They're not my kids. His response is well if there's more money in the household it should free up more money for the skids. I just want to ask what world they think we live in??? BF check barely covers anything after cs comes out and all the medical coverage and BM takes the skids to the doctor like its goin out of style. She's supposed to pay for part of the non-covered costs.. Yeah, we'll have to go to court for that.. The whole court system makes me crazy!! If we didn't live together, BF wouldn't be able to cover any utilities in the house. And yet they "might" wanna look at my income..

My DH gave BM an amount and she accepted it for CS - for some reason she does not want to go to court. But I did contact a lawyer and was told that my income would have nothing to do with CS if they went to court. That the courts expect the parents to be financially responsible for their own child. We can't figure out why she won't go to court but 3 years ago when we told her we were taking her to court to get CS for SS who lived with us she took SS back and has several times asked for money for things but DH keeps telling her that is what the CS is for and she will scream about it but will not take us to court. She must make a good amount of money and does not want us to know. Whatever the reason we have 22 more months and then we are done and I can't wait.

It's true that even in states where a SP income cannot be added, it can be considered. In my moms case recently, it was found that my SDs higher salary warranted my brothers BD paying less child support. The judge adressed my mom specifically and said 'honestly Ms you make more than him and considering you have a whole other income in your household- I cant give you the extra money for daycare expenses'