Child Support Reduction Attempts and Successes
Adopted children’s Iowa state subsidy was properly credited against a father’s Illinois support obligation where the subsidy was meant to supplement the children’s support, the amount of the subsidy was greater than the father’s obligation would have been under Illinois child support guidelines, and the parents’ incomes were approximately equal. Newberry v. Newberry.
Credit card payments did not meet the parameters of subsection (h), therefore, defendant’s net income should not be reduced by the amount of such payments. In re Benish.
Where all of respondent’s arguments pertaining to the award of maintenance and child support were based on a single assumption: that no evidence refuted his assertion, based on his income tax returns, that his net income was not any more than $25,000, it was not an abuse of discretion for the trial court to consider the ample evidence introduced at trial showing respondent’s income was far higher than he alleged. In re Hilkovitch.
Where the amount of the maintenance and support awarded was approximately 20% of the husband’s receipts for one year, the trial court did not abuse its discretion. In re Dwan.
The doctrine of equitable estoppel is an exception to the otherwise rigid rule that child support payments become vested when and as they accrue. Ruster v. Ruster.
The right to past due installments of child support payments is a vested right which may not be reduced or eliminated by courts. The exception to this rule is when the doctrine of equitable estoppel is applied and then the doctrine may be applied to all or part of the past installments in a n appropriate case. Lewis v. Lewis.