Family Law SoftwareThe American Rescue Plan provided for significantly increased Child Tax Credits. The credits for 2021 are up to $3,600 per qualifying child, as opposed to $2,000 before (and after). (In 2021, a qualifying child is typically a child under age 18 at the end of 2021 for whom the party claims the tax exemption.) The […]
A situation has arisen where parties are using proceeds of a refinancing to pay off a separate debt. The question is how to handle this in Family Law Software. There is no way to directly specify that a refinancing will pay off a party’s separate debt. You would be using marital debt to pay off […]
Here’s an example to show how how easy it is to divide incomes 50/50 on an after-tax basis using Family Law Software, and how important it is to look at incomes after tax. Let’s take the hypothetical example of John and Sue. John and Sue have one child. They share parenting time equally and they […]
As you may know, the IRS is making advance payments on account of the Child Tax Credit, starting July 15, and continuing monthly throughout the remainder of 2021. What you may not know is that the IRS is actually willing to send these payments even to people who never filed a tax return! The IRS […]
Get ready to answer your phone … possibly, a lot! Starting July 15, millions of families will start receiving monthly child tax credit payments. Your clients could be among them, and they’ll definitely have questions. As part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan of 2021, signed into law in March, roughly 39 million families […]
On May 27, Dan Caine, the President of Family Law Software, presented a Webinar on the American Rescue Plan — Provisions and Strategies. We have now posted that Webinar on YouTube, and you may view it here: If you wish to view the slides, you may do so here. During the Webinar, people typed questions […]
It is an important but little-known fact that in the event of exactly equal parenting, the tax law provides that the higher-income parent will be considered as custodial. This seems innocuous, but in fact, this determination could have a number of unpleasant consequences. First, the lower income parent would be denied the ability to claim […]
The American rescue act affected three credits in dramatic way, especially for lower income households. Click here for our blog post about these credits. These credits dramatically increase after-tax income, especially for lower-income households, but they are effective only for the year 2021. How does this affect child support? The impact on child support occurs […]
As you may know, Congress passed a stimulus bill in March, 2021, officially called the American Rescue Plan. The bill has many provisions, but three tax provisions in particular will affect the calculations in Family Law Software, especially for the 2021 tax year, with significant impact on cash flow, taxes, and child support. This will […]
People ask which year’s numbers they should use for guidelines and budgets: last year’s? This year’s? Next year’s? The year you use depends on the purpose for which you are using the results. Guidelines. For child and spousal support guidelines, people tend to use current year numbers. However, since the guideline payment amount tends to […]