If you are a noncustodial parent here in North Carolina who is being forced to make child support payments, you may have questions about your legal obligation. One question that often gets asked is what your child support payments are being used to cover.
For many noncustodial parents, the answer to this question may remain allusive. For others, it might even be a little confusing. That’s why, in today’s post, we want to take a look at this question and perhaps clear up some confusion on the matter.
What do child support payments cover in North Carolina?
Most people assume that child support payments only cover food, clothing and other basic necessities. But according to the North Carolina Division of Social Services, child support payments must also cover other needs such as: medical care, transportation, shelter and educational needs. This means, depending on how the court decides, a noncustodial parent may be required to provide medical insurance for their dependants, cover transportation costs if there is a great distance between custodial and noncustodial parents’ homes, and even pay fees for school or extracurricular activities.
It’s very important for our Leesburg readers to know that just because North Carolina law accounts for all of a child’s potential financial needs, this does not necessarily mean that a noncustodial parent is obligated to pay for all of these expenses. In fact, during child support determinations, a North Carolina family law judge takes a number of things into consideration, including the noncustodial parent’s income, and calculates the child support payment owed. This amount is what the noncustodial parent is obligated to pay by law, which can be subject to change after making a request with the courts because of a significant change in finances.