CALCULATING CHILD SUPPORT UNDER ILLINOIS AMENDED STATUTE: A REVIEW AND COMPARISON OF OLD SECTION 505
750 ILCS 5/505(a)
The purpose of this blog is to inform the reader as to the procedure and law applicable
when calculating child support under Illinois amended statute, recently amended and effective on July 1, 2017.
A. After many years of calculating child support on the basis of simple and fairly
easy to use percentages, the Illinois Legislature has now seen fit to change and
drastically complicate the manner in which child support is calculated and
determined.
B. The old Section 505 (Child Support) used a series of percentages that were
applied to the payee’s net income in order to calculate child support. Child
support was determined as follows:
a. First calculate the net income of the person who is to pay child support.
Under the former Section 505 of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of
Marriage Act, the payor’s gross income was reduced by the amount of
taxes(Federal and State); health insurance; mandatory pension payments
and union dues, that were paid by the person owing child support.
b. Next apply certain percentages to the net income. For example if a couple
has one child, then the payor of child support would pay 20% of his or her
net income for child support. If the couple had two children, then 28% of
the payor’s net income would be paid for child support. If the couple had
three children then 32% of the payor’s net income would be used.
c. The simplicity of the process of determining child support in this manner is
quite evident. In the next blog we will delve into the amended child support
statute also known as income shares to see how radically different it is and the
pluses and minuses of the new statute.
About the author:
James M. Kelly is engaged in successfully representing clients in contested and uncontested
dissolution of marriage proceedings and bankruptcy proceedings, both Chapter 7 and
Chapter 13. James Kelly, has been practicing in the northwest suburbs of Cook County
and to a very relevant extent McHenry County, Lake County and DuPage County. James
Kelly has been admitted to the practice of law in the State of Illinois since 1994.
