Nolo's Essential Guide to Divorce - Emily Doskow [141]
Although each branch of the military has its own guidelines for family support, these guidelines are intended to be used only when the service member and spouse haven't been able to agree on support and there is no court order in place. Before turning to the military guidelines, you should calculate support based on the guidelines of the state where your case is filed. To do this, you'll need to know the service member's income as well as any payments the service member is making for health insurance or work-related day care for the kids.
If you don't know your service member spouse's income, don't use a tax return to try to find it out. Portions of military pay are tax-free, and you'll be using an amount that is too low. What you need is something called a Leave and Earnings Statement (LES). The LES will show you basic pay and also allowances such as housing, as well as information about how many dependents the service member is claiming and how much accrued leave is available (which may be relevant if the service member is invoking the SCRA and seeking to delay a hearing date based on unavailability of leave).
Getting an LES is not always a simple matter-you may have to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to the military if your spouse won't provide the LES. You'll probably find it helpful to have an attorney work with you on this, but you also could seek the help of a child support enforcement agency. (See Chapter 8.)
More information on support. There's a helpful guide at the Administration for Children and Families section of the Department of Health and Human Services website. Find it at www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/fct/ militaryguide2000.htm#determine. The ACF website also contains lots of useful information about obtaining and enforcing child support orders.
Another issue to consider is "in-kind" compensation. In some circumstances, it's appropriate to factor in housing, meals, and other in-kind compensation to justify a higher support award because these forms of compensation reduce the service member's overall expenses. However, the military no longer provides most meals, instead paying a food allowance in most base locations. (In the field, however, meals are generally still provided.)
Spousal Support (Alimony)
Like child support, spousal support (also called alimony or spousal maintenance) is mostly controlled by individual states. Each state has its own rules about the circumstances under which one spouse should support the other and how long the support should last. Chapter 11 addresses spousal support.
Enforcement of Support Orders
Mobilization isn't an excuse to stop paying child or spousal support. Even when a service member is deployed out of state or overseas, it's quite simple to keep support coming through automatic deductions from the service member's pay.
On the other hand, if a service member stops paying, enforcing support orders can be challenging. The SCRA can be a factor in child and spousal support cases, allowing the service member to delay a hearing where the civilian spouse is asking for support payments.
Chapter 8 deals with child support, lists child support enforcement offices in every state, and advises on how to get a wage garnishment.
Special Issues for Reservists: Support Orders
When you're getting a support order that applies to a reservist, you need to think ahead to what might happen in the reservist is called up. When a reservist is mobilized, pay from a civilian job generally ends-and so does any garnishment of that pay. One way to avoid this result is to obtain a support order that calls for a generic garnishment on any full-time employment, not just on the spouse's current job. This way, the supported spouse can have the garnishment transferred to the military pay when the reservist is mobilized.
Otherwise,