Q:

From: "Marian Crenshaw" <mariancontrarian@gmail.com>

Subject: Child Support: 29% isn't even enough. Try 50%

 

Dear Kerry,

 

I came across your web site while doing some academic research. I just wanted to let you know that there is a simple and obvious reason why child support is based on a percentage of the non-custodial parent's income----it's because your children are entitled to the lifestyle that you can afford whether you live with them or not. Otherwise, why not just provide the bare minimum they need to survive? Or why provide anything at all? 

 

Think about it: they are, after all, YOUR children, not just your ex-wife's. They deserve to have what you are able to provide for them and if that happens to result in a slight improvement in what your ex's lifestyle might otherwise be, well tough toenails. Maybe you should have tried harder to work things out. Child support is about providing for YOUR kids (you know, the ones who are carrying YOUR name and YOUR DNA), not about spiting your ex.

 

Clearly, you are not thinking straight enough to consult with anyone on taxes. Perhaps you should re-consider whether a web site is appropriate. 

 

But then, who would seriously take tax advice from the Ozarks?

 

Marian Contrarian

A:

Marian:

Thanks for sharing your opinion on this matter.

I still can't accept that as valid reasoning; especially in the context of the example I had written about.  In that case, as it is with countless other parents, the client was required to pay 29% of his tax return's adjusted gross income, most of which consisted of purely paper income which was not in any way available for him to live on, much less for the benefit of his children. 

Your tone implied that I wrote my comments from a selfish perspective.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I have never had any children, nor will I ever have any.  My comments were purely based on a sense of fairness.  To use the force of law to require a parent to share a fixed percentage of his/her wealth with his/her children is not right.  If a parent wants to voluntarily do this, that would be great.  It's much like the issue of charity versus taxation that I posted on my blog yesterday.

You are obviously entitled to your own opinions on matters such as this, even if they are clouded by bigotry towards those of us who choose to live here in the beautiful Ozark Mountains.  I can assure you that my opinions wouldn't be any different if I were still living in the more sophisticated San Francisco Bay Area, where I spent the first 38 years of my life.

Thanks for writing, whoever you are with your Nom de Plume.

Kerry Kerstetter

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 2/20/2007 11:40:00 AM Send this post: