Effective October 1, 2007, the Maryland legislature has changed the way children’s health insurance is handled under the Maryland Child Support Guidelines.

Under the old law, the health insurance premium was deducted from the income of the party who paid for the insurance. Then child support was calculated based on the percentage of the adjusted gross incomes of the parents. That did not result in a one dollar decrease in child support for every dollar paid for health insurance.

Other child costs, like work-related day care, travel and extraordinary expenses, are treated differently. They are added to the basic child support obligation and divided between the parents in proportion to their incomes.

The new law treats health insurance premiums like the other costs. It is no longer a deduction from income, but now an addition to the basic child support obligation which is divided between the parents in proportion to income. As a result, the payor gets a greater reduction in child support and the cost of health insurance is divided more fairly between the parents.

Attorney Stuart Grozbean is the creator of SASI-CALC which is the software that lawyers and judges use to calculate child support. He has met with the Maryland Rules Committee and made recommendations regarding the new calculations which have been adopted. His software incorporates the latest changes.

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Related posts:

1. Lowering Child Support Payments
2. Lawmakers Vote on New Child Support Bill
3. Is a One Time Capital Gain Income for Child Support?
4. Maryland’s New Child Support Guidelines
5. Maryland Child Support Bill Goes to Reconciliation

This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 11:58 am and is filed under Divorce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.