Wife argued that when the trial court imputed income to her, it needed to deduct the child care costs she would have if she worked. The Court of Appeals points out that “[w]here appropriate,” the court calculating child support “shall consider the willingness and availability of the noncustodial parent to provide child care personally in determining whether child-care costs are necessary or excessive.” Code § 20-108.2(F). If a court can do this with actual child care costs, it can also do so with hypothetical ones in this situation, the Court says.
If the court determines that the husband is willing and able to provide necessary childcare, the court does not abuse its discretion in considering this fact in weighing the “obligations, needs and financial resources of the parties” for purposes of spousal support. See Code § 20-107.1(E)(1)
The Court approvingly lists several specific facts which the trial court considered relevant to this:
The evidence established that at the time of the evidentiary hearing, the wife’s part-time job provided her with the flexibility both to work from home and to take her younger child to the office with her on occasion as needed. Further, the evidence established that although the parties’ daughter was ten years old, their son was fourteen at the time of the evidentiary hearing and almost fifteen at the time of the hearing on the motions to reconsider and rehear. Additionally, the husband testified that he had “complete control” of his schedule. He said that he could turn down promotional work in order to care for the children and would be available any evenings necessary if the wife obtained the job identified by the vocational expert. The circuit court found simply that “[t]here are no work-related childcare costs due to [the wife’s] control over her current and anticipated work schedule” and “the nature of [the husband’s] . . . career” moving forward.
Henderson v. Henderson, 5/15/2018, Record No. 1402-17-2. (A separate opinion issued the same day, with a different case number, addressed husband's appeal of various rulings.) The opinion in "1407" addressed so many different issues that I am describing them in separate posts.