Georgia uses child support worksheets to calculate child support. The basics are pretty straight-forward: input each parent's monthly income, the monthly health insurance premium attributable to the children, and voila! A child support amount is calculated. 

In many cases, however, that may just be the beginning of the child support calculation. Georgia also allows deviations from the presumed child support amount, for things such as daycare, after school care, extracurricular activities, private school, very high income, very low income, substantial parenting time exercised by the non-custodial parent, extraordinary medical or educational expenses, and more. Navigating all of these potential adjustments to the child support amount is anything but straight-forward, and a large reason why we recommend that any parent involved in child support negotiations contact an attorney ASAP: every difference of $100 in the monthly child support award amounts to $18,000 over 15 years.  

One potential pitfall we often see in child support is the inclusion of daycare expenses in the child support worksheet. If your child support worksheet includes daycare, it removes the need to both pay child support and calculate your share of daycare. The problem arises when daycare is no longer needed - your child support amount will need to be recalculated, or the paying parent will be paying too much in child support. I've seen a parent unwittingly pay too much child support for years because they never modified the amount after their child graduated from daycare. 

Watch our video to learn more about modifying your child support payments.