Dec 2025, by : Jason Kohlmeyer, Family Lawyer If you’ve been searching “how to lower child support in Minnesota” on Google lately, you’re not alone. Many parents in Minnesota, especially those co‑parenting with roughly equal time, are wondering how recent changes affect their child support obligations. The 2025 updates to the parenting expense adjustment (PEA)…
In-Kind Payments and Child Support in Minnesota: What Counts as Income? When Minnesota courts calculate child support, they look at more than your paycheck. Gross income is defined broadly, and one part of the statute that often surprises people is the inclusion of employee benefits in kind. That phrase means certain perks from your employer,…
Does Child Support Mean Paying for Extracurricular Activities in Minnesota? UPDATED SEPT 2025 Few topics in family law stir up more debate than child support. If you’ve ever sat at a kitchen table with your Ex trying to hash out kids expenses, you know how quickly the conversation can turn tense. On one side, the…
Minnesota and international child support enforcement orders As I write this, it’s a somewhat nice Spring day here in Minnesota, the Twins are not doing that bad, tied for 2nd in the American League Central at 30-25, and Ty France is looking pretty, pretty good this season! So that’s the intro as look at a…
Change in Income and Child Support in Minnesota: What You Need to Know UPDATED: May 2025 In family law, few things stir as much frustration as child support disputes—especially when your income or your ex’s changes significantly. Whether you’re paying support or receiving it, understanding how a change in income impacts child support in Minnesota…
There’s no shortage of bad ideas in family law—agreeing to a handshake child support deal without court approval is high on that list. And thanks to the recent Minnesota Supreme Court case Lee v. Kalis, we’ve got a textbook example of how those seemingly simple “understandings” can snowball into a legal and financial mess. This…
COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENT What is Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA)? UPDATED: APRIL 2024 In the context of family law, the Cost of Living Adjustment, commonly known as COLA (just like Coke!), is a critical financial mechanism designed to ensure that payments like child support and spousal maintenance keep pace with inflation. This adjustment helps…
Child Support for Minnesota Business Owners Child support and corporate/business income are not likely to be high on anyone’s list of favorite things to think about. When you combine both of them, they quickly become even less pleasant. For Minnesota business owners, however, a recent Minnesota Supreme A court decision makes the combination of these…
Note: this post was written in 2013. Federal tax rules on claiming children changed in 2018, so check the current IRS rules before relying on the tax details below. Who Gets To Claim The Kids After The Divorce? It’s not uncommon for there to be some dispute about who gets to claim the children for…
Underemployed for child support purposes? Imputed income in calculating Minnesota child support obligations Child support litigation may be the one time you can tell your ex that he is underperforming in terms of employment and have the legal support to back it up. When a court makes a decision on how much child support is to be…
