Child Support Legal Answers

My son is 15 years old and he’s been in his mother’s primary custody since we split up. However, he goes back and forth between my house and his mother’s. He spends overnights with me, eat meals at my house, and I buy him whatever he needs for school and sports. His mother is now taking me back for more child support because she heard I got a promotion at work. The new position does not pay me substantially more money, I just get more vacation and other perks. Can I counter-sue her for 50/50 custody and have my support lessened? This makes sense since my son is with me a lot anyway and I pay out of pocket for many of his things. If I do take her back to court for custody, will my son have any say in where he wants to live because he’s 15?

My children’s dad owns a restaurant in D.C. and makes alot of money. However, he shows almost no income on his tax returns. He writes off everything, takes payments under the table, and doesn’t report all of the cash he takes in. Every time we go to a child support review hearing he gets away with paying a low amount of support because he provides only his tax returns as proof of income. I know that he does these things and earns more than he is saying because I worked at the restaurant with him when we were married. How do I prove that he is earning more than he is telling the child support office? Can I bring in an accountant or some type of financial expert to look at his business and expenses? I know the child support amount he is paying is not right.

The Georgia Division of Child Support Services sent me a letter saying that because I’m behind on child support, they are going to intercept my federal tax refund. I dispute that I’m behind – I paid my ex in cash for 2 months worth of support. I was out of work and the child support office couldn’t get money from my paycheck so I just paid my kids’ dad directly. I told him about this letter and he keeps saying he’ll call the child support people and let them know I’m not behind, but he hasn’t done it and I’m getting ready to file my taxes. I can’t have that refund taken because then I will have double paid him for 2 months of support. How can I get an audit of my account and confirm that I don’t owe back support?

I was paying child support to my kids’ mother when she passed away recently. The kids came to live with me immediately. The child support was being taken out of my pay, so several payments were made to the child support office after the kids were living with me. Is there any way for me to recoup this money? Suddenly having my kids move in with me has been expensive and I could really use the extra funds to get them what they need for my house and get them settled.

My daughter just finished up her first semester in college at George Mason University here in Fairfax. She partied all the time and did terribly in school, barely missed failing out. In my separation agreement with her mother, I agreed to pay for 4 years of college, but that was under the assumption that she was going to apply herself. I’m not paying tens of thousands of dollars for her to sit around drinking and having fun with her friends. Is there any way I can get out of that clause of the separation agreement? Also, her mother is doing nothing to rectify this situation and just says our daughter will grow out of the partying stage. Even though my daughter is in college, is there anything I can do to get custody of her and make her come live with me under my rules if she does want to stay in school?