A question that often arises in child support cases in California is whether or not a parent can claim a child from a different relationship as a hardship on their income when figuring in the guideline amount of support. The short answers is yes, you can claim a minor child from a different relationship as a hardship deduction if you meet the requirements.

Hardship deductions from income for supporting other children only apply to a child who is either a natural or adopted child of the party involved in the child support case. For example, if you were married and had two children from the marriage, then get divorced and later have another child form a second marriage, the child from the second marriage could potentially considered as a hardship on your income when calculating support for the two children from your marriage.

However, it is important to note that stepchildren cannot be considered as a hardship deduction, only natural or adopted children. The reason is that it only applies to children where there is a legal obligation to provide support. Also, the hardship child needs to reside with the parent. A child from another relationship that doesn’t reside with the parent involved in the child support case would not qualify, although child support paid for other children can be considered separately from hardships in calculating guideline child support.

Another important element to understand is that the maximum hardship deduction for a hardship child cannot exceed the amount of support allocated to each child covered by the child support order. This puts a limitation on how much hardship can be claimed, with the intent to protect the children who already are due support by the parent.

California Family Code sections 4070-4073 regulate the hardship claims that can be made in a child support case. Something to keep in mind is that the hardship deduction for another child may not affect the amount of support as much as the parent thinks it will. For a person paying support, a hardship child deduction will lower the support, but since there usually is also a benefit from the extra tax deduction that another child provides, it often does not lower it as much as people expect.

Many courts, such as the Los Angeles County Superior Court, use a computer program when calculating support called Dissomaster. A Dissomaster report is often attached to any child support order, and shows the breakdown of each parent’s income, and automatically calculates the guideline support. If using this software, the hardship child would usually be given either a factor of .5 or 1.0 in the hardship deduction section, depending on if the hardship child is fully or partially supported by the parent. When the factor is entered, the program will automatically calculate the amount of the hardship deduction, and apply it to the child support guideline calculation.

Because getting a hardship child to be figured into the child support amount can be complicated, it may be necessary for a parent to obtain the assistance of a child support attorney to ensure that the parent gets the proper deduction credited to them.