On August 12, 2016, Governer Rauner signed into law Public Act 99-0764, which will change the manner in which Illinois divorce courts calculate child support.  The law was effective on July 1, 2017 and will modify two sections of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (“The IMDMA”), specifically 750 ILCS 5/505 and 750 ILCS 5/510.

Child support will be calculated by an entirely different method than what had been used for the past 30 years. This change is compatible with most other states in the way they calculate child support.

Here is the Old Law…

Illinois child support law has been calculated by taking the payor’s net income (gross income, minus taxes and other deductions), and applying a certain percentage based on the number of minor children, for example:

  • One minor child:  20% of net income
  • Two minor children: 28% of net income
  • Three children: 32% of net income
  • Four children: 45%
  • Five Children: 50%
  • Six or more children: 50%

Effective July 1st, 2017 – New Law

Under the new Illinois child support law in 2017, both parent’s incomes will be considered when calculating support.   Child support will be calculated based on the combined net incomes of both parents.  The old method of using flat percentages based on the number of children will no longer be used.  Instead, child support will be calculated as follows:

Gross income will be determined first…

“Gross Income” means the total of all income from all sources (this includes the new spouse or partners earnings as well), except “gross income” does not include benefits received by the parent from public assistance programs, including, but not limited to, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income, and the supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or benefits and income received by the parent for other children in the household, including, but not limited to, child support, survivor benefits, and foster care payments. Social security disability and retirement benefits paid for the benefit of the subject child must be included in the disabled or retired parent’s gross income for purposes of calculating the parent’s child support obligation, but the parent is entitled to a child support credit for the amount of benefits paid to the other parent for the child. Spousal support or spousal maintenance received pursuant to a court order in the pending proceedings or any other proceedings must be included in the recipient’s gross income for purposes of calculating the parent’s child support obligation.

“Net Income” means gross income minus either the standardized tax amount and deductions required by law.

(Are you still awake?)

Once they have determined what the combined net income from both households, then things get a little more tricky; they look at how many days each parent spends time caring for the child. They factor a percentage for each parent for support and then you would take that times the amount from a chart created by Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services called the schedule or chart.

The resulting numbers are each parent’s child support obligations

Here is an example of how the new process might look:

Step 1

Father’s net income is $1,500, Mother’s net income is $583.33

Both parents combined net income: $2,083.33 per month (both is $25,000 annually)

Father’s percentage of combined net income is 72%, Mother’s percentage of combined net income is 28%

The combined income amount is then plugged into the “chart” to determine the basic child support amount. ($566.27) is the amount from the Child Support Calculation Table.

Father’s portion is $407.71 and Mother’s Portion is $ 158.56

The resulting number from the “chart” is then multiplied by 72% for Father, and by 28% for mother.

Step 2

From that they factor in how many days each parent cares for the child and if there are any additional costs. The additional costs can be extra-curricular activities, medical expenses, child care, health insurance premiums, etc. The additional amounts are not from a schedule, but added together from each parent.

In Illinois, shared parenting is when each parent spends at least 146 days (or 40%) of overnights with their child each year. Any case that doesn’t meet this formula are calculated with the regular formula.

However, if each parent spends at least the 40% of nights per year with their child, then the total support is calculated differently.

Basic child support obligation is found on the schedule. The difference is with shared parenting the basic child support obligation is multiplied by 1.5 to share in the price of transportation between two residences, and duplicate expenses. This is referred to as the Shared Care Support Obligation.

(Are you still with me on this?) 

Step 3

The parent with the higher obligation amount pays the difference to the other parent. 

Using the same example above

Non-Shared Parenting                                                Shared Parenting

    Father’s portion $407.71                                                               Father’s portion $611.57

Mother’s Portion is $ 158.56                                                        Mother’s Portion is    $237.83

Father has to pay $249.16/month                                        Father has to pay $373.74/month

to the mother for the difference.                      To the mother for the difference.

Currently Illinois Healthcare and Family Services has not updated their website on these important changes. You can read the statue at http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/99/PDF/099-0764.pdf.

These new changes will not change the current support orders in effect. This will be for new orders or if your current order is modified.