Other areas of family law are even more complex when the parties reside in separate states, such as the calculation of and procedure for enforcing or changing child support. Questions commonly posed by parents are:
- What state should I initiate the child support proceedings? ·
- If I, or the other parent, moves out of state?
- Which state’s methodology is applied?
- How will the child support amount differ in State A and State B?
There are no simple answers and the ramifications for parents can be legally and financially diverse.
Understanding a few basic concepts of interstate child support law is important. With that information, and an attorney’s counsel, parents are then able to secure their own, and their child(ren)’s, financial interests.
The Uniform Interstate Family Support Act
The Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, or UIFSA, is a set of laws that has been adopted in almost identical form by all fifty states.
It provides parties with some consistency as to the application of certain child support laws despite moving within the country. It also brings clarity to which state is to have authority in child support and how parties should seek to enforce or change child support when more than one state is involved.
There is no standardized calculation of child support under UIFSA. It regulates the procedure, not the dollar amount, of multi-state child support actions.
Each state employs a different calculation method, and UIFSA does not specify the calculation. But it still has the ability to control child support by controlling which state’s calculations apply.
The UIFSA is comprehensive in that way; each of its provisions is clear. But many aspects of child support are administered at the discretion of the states. And while UIFSA is complete, it is complicated – it takes much careful reading and cross-referencing to obtain answers to specific questions.
