Child support is an important issue in Illinois for the children of separated parents. Child support helps ensure that the child’s financial needs are being met and also helps ensure the children enjoy similar lifestyles when they are with either parent. Sometimes circumstances change, though, and one parent may seek to either increase or decrease the child support payments based on the situation.
Jon Cryer’s ex-wife is currently seeking to increase his current child support payments for their child. The star of Two and a Half Men currently pays $8,000 a month for child support. His ex-wife is now seeking to have him pay $88,000 a month which is more than ten times the amount he currently pays. The ex-wife states that it is not fair that when the child is with her she cannot afford to throw him lavish parties or take him on vacations like his peers at the private school he attends. The mother’s claim is also based on the fact that custody was recently changed so that she now enjoys 50 percent custody from the 4 percent custody she had before. Jon Cryer reportedly earns approximately $2 million a month.
In Illinois, the amount of child support is based on child support guidelines. Numerical values of the parent’s income and other child care costs are used to calculate the child support obligation.
While Jon Cryer’s situation is an extreme example of a child support modification situation, parents in Illinois may be able to modify a current child support order if there has been a significant change in circumstances. These changes include, but are not limited to, the loss of a job, a medical issue or the significant increase in the one parent’s income.
A child support obligation, however, is not changed until the parties reach an agreement as to a new amount or the court orders a modification. Until then, the person responsible to paying child support must continue to pay the regular child support payments.
For parents in Illinois who have experienced a job loss or medical issue, which has changed the parent’s financial situation, the parent may be able to seek a modification of child support payments. Experienced family law attorneys understand child support laws in Illinois and can be a helpful resource as parents contemplate and proceed through the modification process.
Source: The Daily News, “Jon Cryer’s ex-wife Sarah Trigger demands $88,000 a month in child support, claims son ‘needs to be able to compete with peers‘” Nancy Dillon, Oct. 25, 2013