Child Support Routine (CSUP)

The Child Support Routine (CSUP) ensures that a calculated child support garnishment does not exceed a federally-mandated percentage of an employee's disposable income.  If the calculated amount is greater than the federally-mandated amount, the federally-mandated amount will be used for the deduction. An employee can have multiple garnishments, which are typically a fixed amount but can also be a percentage.  Federal guidelines state that garnishments for child support must not be more than 50% of an employee's disposable income, and also requires pro-ration, when necessary, for multiple child support orders. Therefore, if Child Support Routine is selected as the Special Routine ID, the Amount Percent 1 field should be 0.50.  A processing fee can also be collected each period for each garnishment.

Pretax Medical Income Withholding Order (IWO) has to be adjusted when an employee has multiple child support plans and the Site-Specific Parameters (SPAR) record PRETAX CHILD SUPPORT CALC flag is set to true. When an employee is selected for payroll processing, the program retrieves the Federal Tax deduction type from the Text Value field of the SPAR record FEDERAL TAX DEDUCTION. The program then compares the employee’s deduction’s Deduction Type (DEDT) Deduction Processing Order Number to the DEDT Deduction Processing Order Number of Federal Tax Deduction specified in the SPAR. If a deduction has a Deduction Processing Order Number less than the Federal Tax Deduction and Special Routine ID is Child Support Routine, it is considered as pretax Medical IWO deduction.

For the State of Alabama, the current child support orders are processed first, followed by pretax Medical IWO and arrear child support. The child support proration logic uses the processing order defined on the DPLN Multi Child Support Processing Order field. Once the program enters into the pretax child support adjustment logic, the mandatory taxes are recalculated and the current child support is deducted with the full amount and either prorates or backs out the pretax Medical IWO if there is not enough disposable income to deduct for both.

For detailed information on processing Child Support garnishments, refer to Child Support Special Deduction Routine.  For information setting up and processing Multiple Garnishments, refer to Multiple Garnishments.