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Tag Archives: family law software
Where Did All This Child Support Come From, Anyway? – Family Law Software
In every one of the fifty states, lawyers are required to submit a child support computation, whether it is strictly followed or whether a variance is granted.
So, just where did this mandatory child support calculation come from, anyway?
In the mid to late 1980s, data started coming out of the US Census Bureau that illustrated the correlation between poverty, single-parent households, and child support orders. Leaving the award of child support up to judges was not resulting in adequate support for children, and more and more single parents were applying to the federal government for welfare assistance.
The legislative history goes back to 1974, when Congress passed the “Family Support Act” as an amendment to the Social Security Act, making it mandatory for states receiving Aid for Dependent Children to establish and enforce child support obligations. Ten years later, Congress enacted the Child Support Enforcement Amendments, which spread the child support formula and enforcement to all families, not just those receiving public assistance. The year after that, in 1988, Congress mandated that by 1994, all states create a formula that would be a rebuttable presumptive in its computation of child support.
The bottom line for you as a family law attorney is that you need legal software with a powerful child support calculator for every case involving an unemancipated child. And, when you’re deep into negotiations for divorce settlement, you’ll want to be in a position to calculate child support and alimony, and determine whether to shift some of the child support into alimony payments to gain an income tax deduction.
Easy Soft offers the line of legal software products you need. For divorce settlements, select our “Divorce Settlement Software,” which can be used in all 50-states. Add specialized software if you are calculating child support for NY, need a PA support calculator or an AZ child support calculator, or you are in NJ, using the case information statement.
You’ve had since at least 1994 to automate your child support calculations through legal software. We’ve been waiting for you to come along since 1986. Don’t you think it’s time that we got together?
The Self-Support Reserve Computation? Easy!
Every state has a mandatory formula for the computation of child support. You’re a legal professional; you know there are exceptions to every rule. Do you know what the “self-support reserve” exception is to a strict computation of child support?
Unfortunately, in today’s economy, every family law attorney needs to be familiar with the “self-support reserve,” the floor below which a child support variance would become appropriate. If you represent someone who has lost there job and is surviving on government benefits, you need to know this figure. If you represent a child support claimant, you need to not be caught unaware of an impending argument for a variance on this basis.
The federal government annually releases the “poverty guidelines,” defining the poverty rate, based upon household size. In 2011, the poverty guideline for a single person was $10,890/year. States set their “self-support reserve” as a multiplier of the federal poverty guidelines.
For example, let’s say you’re computing child support for NY. NY set its “self-support reserve” at 135% of the federal poverty guidelines. For a child support payor, alone in a household, the self-support reserve would be $10,890 x 135% or $14,702.
If you’re using the NY child support calculator in the “EzSupport-NY” legal software, you can save yourself the steps of keeping track of the federal government annual poverty announcements, checking for the affiliated state updates, and remembering to apply the self-support reserve each time you make a child support calculation. Use Easy Soft law office software to increase your productivity and ensure your accuracy.
With Easy Soft’s family law software, if a payor’s income is at or below the self-support reserve, you will receive a computer-generated alert that says “Low income adjustment applicable,” along with detailed notices such as “more than the poverty level $10,890 but less than self-support reserve $14,702.”
Whether you are calculating child support as part of a divorce settlement or part of a modification or enforcement proceeding, let Easy Soft’s legal software automate your calculations and generate needed alerts.
After all, don’t you already have enough to do in each case without having to remember every figure on your own?
Stop Estimating, Start Recovering! – Divorce Settlement Software
You may be in a bad habit without even realizing that it is costing your client money.
When you are negotiating a matrimonial settlement, do you concentrate on two or three big assets, use estimates, and say each party ‘keeps their own’ for everything else?
The problem with the approach of concentrating on only two or three obvious assets, like the house and a couple of retirement accounts, is that you miss out on how much everything else is worth.
Use Easy Soft’s “Divorce Software” to enter and add up checking accounts, savings accounts, savings bonds, stock certificates, rental deposits, and even cash in the cookie jar. On the other side of the divorce settlement negotiations ledger, major credit cards, store credit cards, deferred store loans on furniture, and overdue income taxes are just some of the bills that may only be in only one party’s name.
When you use the Easy Soft networth statement, you start to systematically add up the details that can be worth thousands of dollars. The client starts by filling out a questionnaire that is included with the Easy Soft Divorce Financials Software. You then have a thorough and systematic approach to begin inserting that client information into the networth statement.
Once that data is input to the networth statement, your divorce settlement negotiations are easy. Assign the asset and liability distribution and see the distribution lists and totals per party. Now those “little” items reveal themselves as the not-so-little totals in the overall divorce settlement negotiations.
At Easy Soft, we design our family law software with a low cost to you for a solid rate of return for each one of your clients. It’s no wonder “easy” is part of our name.
Cash Me Out! – Family Law Software
You’re working cases causing you to pull your hair out. You win a good temporary alimony figure for one client, but it isn’t regularly paid. Another client has a good case for an award of long-term alimony, but the breadwinner is on a short-term employment contract. And then there’s the client who suddenly says remarriage is already in the cards.
These scenarios and more are why we invented Easy Soft’s alimony buyout software. When you’re unsure whether a stream of alimony payments is going to benefit your client and there are assets against which to take an offset, why not use the Easy Soft Divorce Settlement Software, including its alimony buyout calculator to figure out the best divorce financial settlement for your client?
While you may end up using an accountant or CPA to arrive at the final figures before signing a deal, at the least, the Easy Soft Divorce Financial Settlement Software will give you figures you can use for estimates, negotiations, and agreements in principle – even for an alimony buyout computation.
Using the Divorce Software, you can enter up to five asset and liability configurations side-by-side and make comparisons. You can also change variables for the amount, duration, and discount rate used in performing the alimony buyout computation. During divorce settlement negotiations, use the alimony buyout computations as potential asset values and you can imagine how the payor can compensate your client for the value of the alimony claim.
So What is an Alimony Buy-Out, Anyway?
You’ve heard the phrase before “alimony buy-out,” but what does that really mean?
Alimony is typically a periodic payment, paid monthly or per paycheck, over a period of years.
When you “buyout” alimony, a calculation is made of how much that stream of periodic payments would be worth if it was paid in full today. In an alimony buy-out, a lump sum is given to compensate the receipt all-at-once instead of waiting for the string of periodic payments.
In fancier language, the alimony buy-out is a math formula known as a “present value”. The calculation of the total of the string of payments is the easier part; it’s amount times duration. The calculation for the “discount” is the harder part. The “discount” is the percentage deduction to reduce the string of payments into its value all-at-once, today.
Aren’t you glad Easy Soft has alimony buyout software so that you don’t have to do this on your own?
Included in Easy Soft’s “Divorce Financials Software” is an alimony buyout calculator. Perhaps you are looking for an estimated alimony buyout, early in the divorce settlement negotiations. Or perhaps you have a report from the opposing party, and you’re interesting in spinning up to five alimony buyout computations, side-by-side.
Performing the alimony buyout computation takes on value when it is readily available for you to consider how it might fit into the overall divorce financials settlement. For example, will your client be awarded a stream of payments that she never collects in full or will she get to keep all of the house equity, outright? Only when you have Easy Soft’s alimony buyout software will you be able to insert the buyout figure into the equitable distribution mix to maximize your client’s financial position.
Easy Soft’s alimony buyout software is so indispensable that there’s even a divorce financials App version for your smart phone and tablet. We don’t want you to find yourself in divorce settlement negotiations without it.
And, who knows? By the time you play around enough with Easy Soft’s Divorce Financials Software you might decide that you do like math, after all.
Turning Nightmares into Daydreams through the mEasySoft Mobile App
It’s the divorce lawyer’s worst nightmare: the judge looks at your papers during a conference and says, what if we change this one number?
Do you:
(a) Claim to be having an allergic reaction as you choke;
(b) Pull out a pencil and a calculator and try to slog through the math;
(c) Tell the judge you’ll be happy to do it back in your office to discuss at the next court conference; or,
(d) Pull out your tablet or smartphone and run the Easy Soft App to quickly provide the judge with the figures he’s requested?
Let Easy Soft turn the pace of modern technology to your client’s advantage with the mEasySoft FREE divorce settlement App.
If you’re an attorney in NJ, NY, PA, or AZ, simply prepare your support calculations in the comfort of your office using Easy Soft’s suite of family law software. In every state, use Easy Soft’s Divorce Financials Software to prepare your divorce settlements. Print out your crisp, clear worksheets, from networth statements to pension valuations for divorce, and get to court with confidence.
When the judge asks you to make that little change during the conference, simply smile, click on your Easy Soft divorce settlement App, change the number, and read the judge the new calculation right off your screen.
Next question: what if you run into a technical problem using your Easy Soft divorce settlement App while you’re sitting in chambers? No worries. Easy Soft provides the same great technical support for its phone and tablet applications as it does for all of its software products. Easy Soft offers on-line help guides, technical videos, webinars, and, of course, live technical support staff.
Easy Soft’s divorce financials App is like having your office in your pocket.
Daydreams encouraged in your new no-sweat zone.
