Child Support Depends on the Parents’ Income
Video Transcribed: What would Kanye West’s child support obligation be in the state of Oklahoma? I am James Wirth. I’m an attorney in Oklahoma. That’s what we’re talking about. A little bit of pop culture here.
There are articles currently reporting that Kanye West has entered an agreed divorce with Kim Kardashian and it has terms that include a child support obligation by him of $200,000 per month. Quite extreme. Would it be the same in Oklahoma or would it be different?
A little bit of background on how child support works. We have the Oklahoma child support guidelines in Oklahoma. Most of the time that means you plug in certain numbers and it spits out the amount of support that you’re supposed to pay. That can actually be found in Oklahoma law. It’s title 20… I’m sorry, it’s title 43, section 119 is the actual schedule. You can look at that. I’ve got a copy here and it talks about certain numbers where we look at the combined incomes of the parties in this column here, and it’s got pages of this. As those numbers go up, it’s got a total amount of support based on the number of kids. Each column is how many kids, one through six. It goes on pages and pages and pages based on how many, and what the combined income is of those parties.
Let’s go ahead and keep going on because it goes from $50 a month and $50 increments. So, 6,000 here, 7,000, next page, 8,000, 9,000, skip a few pages, and we go to 13,000. Then on this last page, it’s got the very last line that we have pulled up here and it says $15,000. All right, so if the party’s joint income per month is $15,000 and they’ve got six kids, then the child support obligation in total would be 2,955. So, $2,955. That amount is split pro rata based on who makes more money. If one party makes a lot more money, they’re going to be paying that amount versus the other party, depending on who has custody. Long story short, that total amount is split pro rata, and then the party who has primary custody is not going to be paying, it’s going to be the other party that is paying.
But in the case of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, I believe they have four kids. So, that would be a pro-rata split of only 2,400… I’m sorry, $2,548 if they had a combined income of 15,000. Now, what if they have more than that? The guidelines don’t go beyond more than that. They’ve exceeded the guidelines. What it says is if the combined gross monthly income exceeds $15,000, the child support shall be that amount computed for a monthly income of $15,000, that’s the 2,548 split pro rata, and an additional amount determined by the court.
Long story short, for most people, they go by the child support guidelines. You plug it in and it splits the amount out. But not for Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. They exceed the income that is applicable in the child support guidelines because they make presumably more than $15,000 per month. So, it’s just an amount determined by the court.
How does the court make that determination? Well, it’s going to be based on the parties’ abilities to pay and the differences in their incomes, and what the custody split is. If it’s a 50/50 split versus one parent having more overnights, under the Oklahoma child support guidelines, it’s going to be split. If you have 120 or more overnights, then that’s going to start to lower your child support obligation if you are the obligor in that situation.
How do you determine it? Well, it’s really about what the purpose of child support is. What the court doesn’t want is that the kids are living this wealthy lifestyle in one house and then when they go to the other house, they’re living in relative poverty compared to the other one. Because that, as a parent, puts them in a bad position to have a good, strong relationship with their child who may not want to come and live with them when they’re living in the lap of luxury at the other house, but not so much when they’re living at that house, and that’s not going to be in the best interest of the kids to have that affect the relationship with the other parent. Child support is supposed to level that playing field a bit, so no matter how wealthy they are at one house, they can live somewhat commensurate at the other house.
Those same factors that likely went into the determination in California are going to be applicable in the state of Oklahoma. The state of Oklahoma could determine that same amount depending on what the parties’ incomes are determined to be. It’s a little bit interesting that it’s that high just because both parents have such high incomes in this case. However, because it appears Kim Kardashian is having the majority of the custody time, that is going to factor into Kanye being the obligor and paying the money there.
It could be the same type of order here. I wonder, however, since our courts generally probably don’t deal with these types of high-income, certainly, the high profile celebrity cases, the same as they do in California, that the judges might be more conservative and they’re generally more conservative here in the state of Oklahoma and maybe not award so much child support, but it’s certainly a possibility that they’d do the same thing based on the law in the state of Oklahoma.
All right, well if you have any questions about child support in Oklahoma, or family law cases in general, you’re going to want to talk to an attorney privately and confidentially about your case. To get that scheduled with a Tulsa child support lawyer at my office, you can go online to MakeLawEasy.com.