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If You Owe Past Due Child Support, Your Coronavirus Stimulus Check Could Go Straight to Your Ex

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Couples who do not have children together can often make a clean break after their divorce, unless they were married for many years or their marital property is very valuable.  If you and your ex-spouse have children together, your disagreements with your ex about how much money is required to meet your children’s basic needs can go on until the children grow up, and the financial fallout can last even longer.  In a society where almost everyone is in debt, wage garnishment is only an option when the creditor can prove in court that it is their only way to get the money; child support is one of the main reasons for garnishment of bank accounts or paychecks.  To make matters worse, your coronavirus stimulus check could get garnished in its entirety if you are past due on your child support payments.  Before that happens, it is in your interest to modify your child support agreement so that the debts do not keep piling up.  Contact a South Florida child support lawyer so you can straighten things out before the stimulus checks arrive.

The Coronavirus Stimulus Singles Out Parents Who Owe Child Support

Owing money to the federal government, whether it is back taxes or past due payments on federal student loans, will cost you your tax refund.  The coronavirus pandemic is such an emergency that Uncle Sam will be more lenient this time and send $1,200 to every person who earned less than $99,000 in 2019.  People who owe back taxes or are behind on their student loan payments will still receive the stimulus money; millions of Americans fit into those categories, and putting them deeper into debt would defeat the purpose of the stimulus.  People who are more than $2,500 behind on child support payments still can’t catch a break, though.  The stimulus money that would have gone to you will instead go straight to fulfilling your child support obligations.

A pessimist would interpret this to mean that your ex gets to continue mishandling your money long after the divorce.  If you are an optimist will consider that you did receive $1,200; it just went straight to paying down your child support debt before you ever saw it.  As a pragmatist, though, you will realize that the coronavirus pandemic represents a material change in financial circumstances.  You have a strong argument that your ex can no longer expect you to pay exorbitant sums to fund the same kind of lifestyle your children had before COVID-19 hit.

Contact Us Today for Help

Your ex’s arguments that you should continue to pay for private school tuition and expensive vacations no longer hold water in the age of COVID-19.   The best solution is to modify your child support agreement to something that reflects your true financial circumstances today.  Contact a Boca Raton child support lawyer at Schwartz | White for help today.

Resources:

nbcnews.com/politics/congress/stimulus-check-won-t-be-mail-americans-who-owe-child-n1170596

yahoo.com/news/over-3-million-americans-delinquent-100939367.html

https://www.schwartz-white.com/child-support-and-childrens-special-educational-needs/

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