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Chicago Child Support Attorney
Child Support Isn't Just a Number. It's Your Child's Standard of Living.
When a marriage or relationship ends, both parents remain financially responsible for their children. Illinois law is clear on that point. What's less clear — and what often becomes a significant source of conflict — is how that obligation is calculated, what it covers, and what happens when circumstances change.
Child support disputes are among the most common matters we handle. Whether you're establishing support for the first time, dealing with a spouse who isn't paying, or facing a request to modify an existing order, the outcome has real consequences for your child and for your finances.
LaRocque Law represents parents on both sides of child support matters throughout Cook, DuPage, and Will County.
How Illinois Calculates Child Support
Illinois uses an income shares model for child support. Rather than basing support solely on the paying parent's income, the income shares model considers both parents' incomes and attempts to approximate the amount the child would have received if the family had remained intact.
The calculation starts with both parents' net incomes — gross income minus certain allowable deductions including taxes, Social Security, mandatory retirement contributions, and prior child support obligations. Those net incomes are combined and applied to a schedule that produces a basic support obligation based on the number of children. That obligation is then allocated between the parents proportionally based on each parent's share of the combined income.
Parenting time also affects the calculation. When a parent has 146 or more overnights with the child per year — a shared parenting arrangement — a parenting time adjustment reduces that parent's support obligation to reflect the direct costs they're already incurring.
The formula produces a presumed amount. Courts can deviate from it when the result would be inequitable given the specific circumstances of the case.
What Child Support Covers — and What It Doesn't
The basic child support obligation is intended to cover ordinary day-to-day expenses — housing, food, clothing, and routine costs of raising a child. It does not automatically cover everything.
Illinois law separately addresses two categories of additional expenses:
Healthcare
One or both parents may be ordered to maintain health insurance for the child. Uninsured or unreimbursed medical expenses — co-pays, deductibles, orthodontia, therapy, and other costs not covered by insurance — are typically allocated between the parents in proportion to their incomes. The agreement or order needs to address this specifically.
Extracurricular and Educational Expenses
Costs like school tuition, tutoring, sports, music lessons, and similar activities are not automatically included in base support. Courts can order these expenses to be shared, and a well-drafted support order addresses them directly rather than leaving them to future dispute.
These additional expenses are a significant source of post-divorce conflict when they're not addressed clearly from the start. We make sure they are.
Income: The Most Contested Part of the Calculation
The child support formula is only as reliable as the income figures going into it. In cases involving salaried employees with straightforward W-2 income, this is relatively simple. In cases involving self-employed parents, business owners, cash income, variable compensation, or intentional underemployment, income determination becomes the central dispute.
Illinois courts have tools to address income that isn't what it appears to be. Courts can impute income to a parent who is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed — attributing what they could be earning based on their education, work history, and the job market — rather than accepting artificially low reported income. Discovery tools including tax returns, bank statements, business records, and depositions help build the complete picture.
If you believe your co-parent is understating their income, that's a fight worth having. The difference compounds over years of payments.
Establishing Child Support for the First Time
Child support can be established as part of a divorce proceeding or, for parents who were never married, through a separate parentage action. In either case the process involves financial disclosure from both parties, calculation under the Illinois guidelines, and entry of a court order.
An agreed support order — one both parents have negotiated and signed — is faster and less expensive than a litigated one. It also gives the parties more flexibility to address specific expenses and circumstances that a standard judicial order might not capture. We help clients reach support agreements that are fair, complete, and enforceable.
Enforcement: When Support Isn't Being Paid
A child support order is a court order. Failing to pay it has consequences — and those consequences can be significant.
Illinois has robust enforcement mechanisms for unpaid child support. These include income withholding orders that direct an employer to deduct support directly from the paying parent's paycheck, liens on real property and bank accounts, suspension of driver's and professional licenses, interception of tax refunds, and findings of contempt of court that can result in fines or jail time.
If your co-parent is not paying court-ordered support, you have options. We move quickly on enforcement matters and pursue the remedies most likely to produce results in your specific situation.
Unpaid support accrues as a judgment. The other parent cannot simply walk away from arrears by later claiming hardship — they owe what the order required, with interest, until it is paid.
Modification: When Circumstances Change
Child support orders are not permanent. They can be modified when there has been a substantial change in circumstances since the last order was entered.
Common grounds for modification include a significant increase or decrease in either parent's income, job loss or a new higher-paying position, a change in the child's financial needs, a change in the parenting time arrangement, or the child aging out of coverage for certain expenses.
Illinois also provides a three-year review mechanism — either parent can request a review of the support order every three years without having to prove a substantial change in circumstances. If the recalculated amount differs from the current order by at least twenty percent, the court can modify it.
Timing matters. A modification is not retroactive. It applies from the date the petition is filed — not from the date your income changed. If your circumstances have changed, file promptly. Waiting costs you.
Child Support and Taxes
Child support payments are neither deductible for the paying parent nor taxable income for the receiving parent. This distinguishes child support from spousal maintenance, which has its own tax treatment under applicable law.
The dependency exemption and child tax credit are separate issues that a well-drafted parenting plan or support order should address directly. In households with multiple children, how these benefits are allocated can have meaningful financial consequences.
Why LaRocque Law
Child support cases look simple until they aren't. The formula is clear — the inputs often aren't. We know how to identify income that isn't being disclosed, how to challenge imputation arguments, how to enforce orders that aren't being followed, and how to modify support when life changes in ways the original order didn't anticipate.
We represent both parents seeking support and parents paying it. Our job is to make sure the number is right — calculated correctly, documented thoroughly, and enforceable when it needs to be.
LaRocque Law serves clients in Cook, DuPage, and Will County.