When a parent tries to reduce child support by working less, the other parent needs to show there is no 'good cause' for the other parent to earn less.
Nevada child support guidelines use parents' income to calculate child support obligation. This leads many parents to earn less, or at least claim to earn less, in an effort to reduce their child support payments. The tactic is so common that lawyers and judges jokingly refer to the tactic as SIDS, an acronym for Sudden Income Deficiency Syndrome.
Income is a major factor in child support calculations.
Under the child support guidelines, a parent’s child support obligation is based on their income from almost any source. There are a few exceptions: child support received (as in, for instance, child support payments received for the support of another child), foster care or kinship care payments, supplemental security income, state supplemental payments, and various public assistance programs (SNAP, etc.).
Is a parent is underemployed or unemployed without good cause?
But under NAC 425.125, if “the court determines that an obligor is underemployed or unemployed without good cause, the court may impute income to the obligor.” In other words, if the court finds someone is underemployed or unemployed “without good cause,” the court will base child support upon the income the parent could earn instead of what the parent actually earns.
For example, many teachers could earn more at other professions. If a parent has been a teacher for many years, the court will likely find the parent has good cause for being a teacher. On the other hand, if a parent quits a higher paying job the day after the other parent asks for child support, and gets a job as a teacher instead, the court will likely find the reason the parent did so was to reduce the child support obligation - no good cause.
If a court determines there is no good cause, it will 'impute income.'
If the court “imputes income,” NAC 425 requires the court to take into consideration many factors:
the parent’s assets,
residence,
employment and earnings history,
job skills,
education attainment,
literacy,
age,
health,
criminal record or other employment barriers;
and record of seeking work
the local job market,
the availability of employers willing to hire the parent, and
any other relevant factors.
Common good causes why to be unemployed or underemployed.
People who are disabled may be excused from working and the corresponding income, especially if they are receiving disability income. Similarly, people are not required to work until they die: people over the age of 65 or so are usually allowed to retire and stop working.
Sometimes a parent loses a job through no fault of his or her own. If a parent is not working, but is generally able to work, then the court will likely give that parent some time to find work. How much time depends on the current hiring conditions, the parent’s qualifications, and the type of work sought. Courts will likely expect a certain amount of effort to find work, often expressed as a certain number of job applications per week. Some judges tend to use the same standard for all cases, which can be unfortunate as an effective job search for a parent who works as a CEO of large technology companies is very different from an effective job search for a parent seeking work as a retail sales clerk. In any case, if a judge becomes convinced that a parent is not doing enough to find employment, the judge can and likely will impute income.
Ultimately, is there a good reason for earning less?
So can a parent reduce their child support by earning less? In short, only if there is a good reason. If the judge feels that the parent is earning less just to pay less child support, then the judge will set child support based on what the judge believes the parent could earn.