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The Professor Nedley Series
PROFESSOR NEDLEY’S SIMPLE 4-STEP PROGRAM
FOR
SALVATION AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF DISSOMASTER™
Problems & Solutions
January 1, 2007
Professor Nedley’s theory is that you can only learn to use a computer and this particular software by pointing and clicking. This guide provides a family law fact pattern which, however improbable, contains most situations that you will incur in a family law courtroom. However, Professor Nedley not only provides you with the problem, but leads you click-by-click to the solutions. Even the tech-addled Judges and lawyers will benefit from the simplicity of this plan. Simply sit down and start clicking by yourself and at your own pace.
I. THE PROBLEM – THE MANSON FAMILY
Father (Wesley) – He's remarried. His new mate, Hildy, earns $2500 per month. He pays health insurance of $200 for one kid by his old girlfriend and two stepchildren with W-2 His support obligation for Kid 1 is $350 per month. He lives with Wife #2 and her two kids, and their new child, Bart. Bart is also included on his Dad's health insurance.
Father (Respondent) Mother (Christine)
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Dad has custody of oldest (Tom) |
Mom visits Tom 38% |
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Dad visits 10% and 18% |
Mom has custody of Steve and Jackie |
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W-2 income $5,000 |
Annual contract of $31,000 in Nevada |
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Non-taxable income $1500 |
As of 10/31/06 received W-2 income of 22,300 |
|
$500 housing costs |
She pays health insurance of $78 |
|
New spouse income |
She pays childcare for two kids of $750 |
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He pays child support of $350 per month |
She pays unreimbursed healthcare cost of $140 per month |
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He pays health insurance for 6 kids $200 |
Royalty Income of $12,000/annum |
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He pays child support of $350 per month |
|
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House payment $1800 |
|
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Tools of trade $75 |
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III. LET’S DO THE INPUT - STEP ONE
1.0 Clear the Table - First “click” on the white “page” in the row of icons at the top of the page. Or got to “file” then “new”.
2.0 Set the Proper Year – Check the year in the top row of icons, if it’s not 2007, hit the drop down arrow and select the year.
3.0 Children and the Parties
3.1 Click on “Mother.” You can get there either by using your mouse or the 4-way arrows. Type in her name then do the same for the father
3.2 To put the kids in, on the line that says “Number of Children” type “1” under father and “2” under mother and then click on the little square box that appears –or go to “Edit”>“Children”. Once the “child manager” box pops down you can personalize this nasty business by putting in their names and birthdates. This will also help allocate CS to the proper child by age.
3.3 Click on “Child 1” and then highlight the “Child 1” in the box and type in the oldest child’s name. (This is not mandatory, the program works fine without names – it’s just kind of impersonal on a handout). Show that Dad has custody of Tom in the “custodial parent” box and show the timeshare as 38%. Do the same process for Mother with Steve (10%) and Jackie (18%). Click “done” and your back to the main page with the correct percentages showing – 38% in mother’s column and 14% in Father’s column (That is referred to as a “blended percentage”).
.
Note: On the timeshare, if you prefer using actual time instead of a percentage, you could have also have put in a hard “daycount” or “hour” count, i.e. 26 weekends is 52 days, plus 14 days in the summer, plus ½ of the 10 holidays, plus a ¼ day each week for Wednesday night dinner. Simply put in 83.5 days in the box on the “child manager” that says “day” and the % will be calculated.
3.4 If you erred, (incidentally this word is pronounced "urd" not "airoared") simply highlight the error and press delete and reenter the correct info.
4.0 Filing Status
4.1 First determine what status will be used to report income at the end of this tax year. Then click on the Father’s box and hit the space bar or click on the down arrow and select the proper status. The > pointing away means a joint return with someone else. The < pointing toward the other party means a joint return with the other party. They must be married through 12/31/xx). In other words if the Disso is granted before the end of the year there can be NO joint return. On the other hand if the Dissolution is filed in the second half of the year a divorce cannot be granted before the end of the year AND if they also did not separate until after June 30th they cannot do single or MFJ they must do MFS which is the worst category. Just because they are separated doesn’t mean they are single for tax purposes. In the Manson case since both parties have custody of a child, they can both file as Head of Household.
4.2 Mother’s space and Father’s space should read HH/MLA (Head of household/married living apart). Leave it there as long as each has physical custody on one child more than one-half the year.
4.3 On the next line down “exemptions” enter the correct number for each. Christine’s is correct. Wesley, however, has a new kid by Hildy, Hildy’s two kids and a “floater” with his old girlfriend (absent an agreement with his old girlfriend, he’s not entitled to that exemption). Therefore, Wesley’s exemption number is 6.
5.0 Entries for Wesley
5.1 $10,000 W-2 – Single click or highlight “wages & salary” in Father’s column. Enter Father’s gross income of $10,000. It’s straightforward.The State and Federal taxes will be automatic including FICA. Use this line for your basic W-2 wages.
5.2 $1500 Non-Taxable – I would either enter this directly on the main screen under "non-taxable income" or double-click and enter it as “other” on the non-taxable screen.
5.3 Housing Costs – The next item is $500 for housing costs. If it’s a “perk” and goes toward his primary housing, I would also add this to non-taxable income. If it’s to assist in a secondary work-related housing, I would ignore it. In this case, It will be added as additional non-tax income. If he actually reports the housing, adjust accordingly.
5.4 More Non-Taxable Income -Other entries for Wesley bring his total to 2000. You do this by clicking on the “non-taxable income” “+” and then entering $1500 as interest and $500 as other. Click "+." To close the box.
5.5 Newmate $2500 – Enter, his new Wife, Hildy’s income on the “new spouse” line. Do not enter fiance’s incomes. It is always a good idea to explain out loud that this does not go toward child support; it is only used to compute taxes.
5.6 Child Support $350 - Drop down to the “child support paid to others” line and enter $350. This is not a hardship deduction. It must be supported by proof of the existence of the order and proof of payment (ie. a wage assignment) if it’s contested.
5.7 Health Insurance $200: You enter the amount that is actually paid. It doesn’t matter how many persons or children are covered under the code. You don’t apportion. It’s deductible even if it’s only for Father. Read the code section, see LingoBuster for the site.
5.8 House Payment, $1800: It’s not broken down as to interest or taxes, do your best. Go to the “Itemized Expenses line and hit the “+” button and then I’d enter $1200 on the “Interest Expense" line and $300 on the “Property Tax Expense” line. Remember, this is Government work.
5.9 Tools of Trade $75. This is your call. Use common sense. $75 is reasonable amount for drafting tools. Double click on “Other Guideline.Ddeductions.” Hit “+” then enter $75 under “job-related expenses”? and click "+.". You may wish to hit recalculate somewhere in here to save your data.
6.0 Entries For Christine (Make sure that you’ve been putting information in the right column so far.)
6.1 Deleting FICA and/or State Income Tax : Nevada has no state income tax. (which attorneys may or may not know) In order to allow for this, go up and click on the “√” icon. This will allow give you the “Settings” box Click on the “taxes” tab. On the Mother’s or Christine’s column unclick the “Include State Taxes” box. Hit “OK”. You’ve now made a change of the program settings for this program only This is where you can also eliminate FICA by unchecking the “include FICA” box. In this case she still has to pay FICA so leave it alone.
Note: When you make behind the scene changes on taxes, there will be footnote right in the Guideline Box which says “tax settings changed.”
6.2 Nevada Contract $31,000/Year:
6.2.1 It's an annual contract. So highlight the box at the top, middle of the page that says "monthly", hit the dropdown arrow and select “annual”.
6.2.2 Enter the dollar amount of $31,000 under "Self-Employed Income." (that allows for the extra self-employment taxes to be calculated).
6.2.3 Change the "Annual" back to a "monthly". It will show an amount of $2,583.in the “Self Employment” box.
6.3 Year To Date W-2 Income $22,300 as of 10/31/06
6.3.1 This is one of our most common and best entries for true income because it gives the most accurate income picture. Almost ALL paystubs have a Y-T-D figure which includes not only the base pay that every litigant considers
to be their income, BUT it also includes OT, vacation sick pay and other allowances that represent what WE think is their gross income.
6.3.2 Click on the “+” on the “wages and salary” line under Wife. This gives you a drop down menu that offers a variety of choices for entry of W-2 income. Down at the bottom under the word “OR” you may enter the “YTD” which is the date usually defined on the paycheck as the “end of period” – enter “10/31”. Next, if the pay date starts after Jan 1st, as is often the case on paychecks that are on two-week cycles, enter the starting date. Here we’ll leave it as 1/1.
6.3.3 (Reserved)
6.3.4 In the “Amount YTD” enter the gross amount earned to date. Here it is $22,300. This will show a monthly amount of $2231 under “Wages”. Hit “recalculate” or hit return twice.
6.4 Royalty Income $12,000:
6.4.1 Royalty income is taxable, however, it does not belong under Wages and Salary and it is not self-employed income.
6.4.2 Hit the “+” on "other taxable income." This will give you a dropdown menu with many choices for entry of income and losses.
6.4.3 The $12,000 is an annual figure so first toggle the “monthly figures” box at the top to “annual” then enter $12,000 under “Royalty Income.”. Click back to “Monthly” it will, show an amount of $1000 under “Other Taxable Income”.
6.4.4 Note: These are “net” figures after business expenses, but before taxes. T78here are also possible entries for stock gains, dividends, net rentals, interest, Social Security income and Miscellaneous “other taxable income” which is a catchall for income where FICA deductions are not appropriate.
6.5 Health Insurance $78 Per Month: Click on “Health Insurance” and enter
$78.
6.6 Add-On Child Care of $750: At the very bottom there is a space for
“child support add-ons.” Enter $750. Click on “recalculate.” You will note that in the middle of the page “guideline” box, under “support” there is a separate line for “add-ons”. This will become part of your “add-on” order. Under Family Code § 4062 other “add-on” would include: visitation, school, travel, and even unreimbursed healthcare expenses.
6.7 Uninsured Health Care Costs - In this case because of the unreimbursed healthcare expenses we will add $140 on the appropriate line under “Add-ons” This then will reflect a total of $890. This is a “shall” add-on.
6.8 Educational or Special Needs Expenses and Travel Costs for Visitation. These are “may” add-ons. In these cases travel costs are $900 per quarter so add another $300 to the add-on’s box, or you might consider putting it on his side and ordering him to pay for it, this will seemingly reduce his total child support and he’ll like that. Let’s do that.
7.0 Other Kids and Hardships: After you’ve gotten this far, he or his lawyer
raises their hand and asks for a hardship for his pre-existing child, his new
kid Bart, and his Newmate’s two kids. There are some choices to be made.
7.1 Previous Children/Child Support – Not a hardship because he gets credit for his actual child support payment of $350. Go to his column. Click on “child support paid previous marriage” and enter “$350” if you haven’t already done so.
7.2 Stepchildren - Sorry, not eligible under the statute.
7.3 New Child - Bart: This is your call to determine if it’s truly a hardship under § 4071. The code requires that the hardship be pled and that you make specific findings of the hardship. Tough test that most folks don’t meet. I’m in a good mood today and will permit a hardship. I make the requisite findings on the record.
7.3.1 Go to the “hardship deduction” in his column and “+”. The
first line is your “classic” hardship deduction – A child residing with
the parent for which no support is being received. Enter “one” in
the highlighted box. You’ll note that there is a decimal. You can give a partial hardship if you wish. When you put the “1” kid in the box and hit recalculate, you’ll notice that the computer recalculates the amount – in this case it is $869 (Or thereabouts).
Note: You could also enter ongoing regular Health Costs under the hardship box.
IV. MINI-SUMMARY: AT THIS POINT ALL INFORMATION IS ENTERED
AND THE SCREEN “GUIDELINE” BOX WOULD REFLECT
NETS
Father $9591
Mother $4565
Child care $295
Basic child support $2312
Guideline spousal support $991
Total $3598
Note: If you’re not right on the money, don’t sweat it, just make sure that you’re close enough for government work.
V. ANALYZE AND APPLY THE DATA - STEP TWO
1.0 Calculate Child Support Only:
1.1 Click on the icon at the top that shows “$>Adult”. If you click on that box it will show “Spousal Support Blocked” in the Guideline box.
Note: Because of the monitors on counsel table, I don't necessarily want the public to see the guideline spousal support. So I either block it or shut the monitors off. This guideline is non-binding.
2.0 Set Spousal Support as a Specific Amount: In this case $500.
2.1 Click on the "√" icon at the top then click on the tab "tactic." Click on the 1st button that says “”Fix specific dollar amount”. In the box that appears enter the actual child support that has been calculated in the “Non-deductible” box and then put the amount that you havae determined or a stipulated amount in the “deductible box. Hit OK.
2.2 Go to Line 1 which is "fix specific dollar support."
2.3 Click "ok."
2.4 On the "Tactic 1" screen, enter the actual child support of $2312
as "non-deductible support."
2.5 Under "deductible support" enter the $ amount that you wish to
consider for spousal support. In this case $500. Hit "ok."
2.6 In the middle of the screen at the bottom under "proposed" you will
see your possible order listed as Tactic 1. You will also see the net
results of this order in the far right-hand column under "proposal."
3.0 Set Guideline Child Support AND Spousal Support: Click on "$ > Adult" and
to show the guideline support. The two columns at the right
"guideline and proposed" will then give you comparative results. (If you want a
comparison between your preset amount of spousal support and the computer
guideline.)
4.0 Announce Net Taxable Incomes
4.1 If you are only considering on ly child support, block the SS and go to the top of the middle box where it reads father's income to be $9256 net and mother's income to be $4829. These are the nets for CS.
4.2 If spousal support is being factored in, unblock the SS icon at the top and then Dad's net income is $9591 and Mom's is $4565.
4.3 “Press B” If you want net spendables before tax benefits of paying spousal support, press "B" and view the results. This basically gives you
the result for "unbumped" support and net incomes before the
impact of spousal support deductibility. “Bumped is an old term that means recalculating SS for the effect of the deductibility of taxes.
5.0 Review Net Spendable Incomes. Assume Guideline is $2270
5.1 Go to right-hand column marked "guideline" and read two lines down under Father. "Net Spendable" is $5993 per month. That's the money in his pocket after all taxes and support are paid. Mother’s spendable is $8163 ($4565 net + $3598 support).
VI. SAVING THE DATA - STEP THREE
You may wish to save all of this information on the Manson case. This is useful if they are coming back for future OSC’s or a trial. The only question is where you wish to save your efforts. I strongly recommend it and I further recommend that you save it to your personal “H” drive. Using the H drive, you can view and work with the results both in chambers and on the bench and if you are moved to a different courtroom you can always access the information. For those readers not on a network just save it to a special folder in your “C” drive.
1.0 Go to the top left corner and click on “file.”
2.0 Then click on “save as” this will give you a “save as” screen.
3.0 H Drive – Again this is for judges or lawyers with networks and shared drives. First click on the drop down box at the top and select the “H” or network drive. Then type in the Petitioner’s last name in the “File name” box at the bottom. Note that when the box first pops up it may have “Dissomaster” in the box at the top. You do NOT want this, because it merely saves to the “C” drive. This is very important because by saving to the H drive you are able to work on the file in chambers, save it and then open it from the H drive in the courtroom – any courtroom
4.0 Select the "Save" location. Note that after you’ve saved once on the “H” drive on any given case you have created a”path” and thereafter on that case you merely need to click on the “disk” icon at the top and the computer will save to the H drive on that case.
4.2 Save to Floppy Disk: If you wish to save to a portable “floppy disk,” or a “thumb drive” click on the arrow at the end of the “save in” box and it will display a variety of choices. Put a clean “floppy” in your floppy drive or a thumb drive in your USB port and highlight and click on the icon and you now have it on a transferable storage and can take it anywhere.
4.3 Network Save: This is pretty cool! You have a “S” drive called “Courts on SCSD”. If you click on that drive you’ll get another “dropdown”. Click on “FM” for Family Law, then click on “Judges,” you may save the file at this point or you may set up a subfile at that stage. Either way your Manson file is now saved to the Network S drive. (other counties will have similar "network" drives. The process should be the same.). This permits you to share with other judges working on the same case, word document, Power Point or whatever.
VII. PRINTING - STEP FOUR
1.0 Print it out: One for the file, two for the clients, three to get ready, four to go.
1.1 Reserved
1.2 Click on the “print” icon, or hit “control and P” or click on “file” in the very top row, then click on “print.” Either one will give you a "print" list from which to choose.
1.3 Click on “Input Screen” if you simply want the basic printout
which presents the support orders and the gross and net incomes. If you have more than one child you MUST break the support down as to each child, so you need to check “Findings and Rebuttals”. This information is also found at the top under “Reports” > “Findings”. You can print from this screen as well. You can always hit “control + P”
1.4 If you want to print the main screen that is on display, hit “F-7” and it will give you a print box. Hit "ok." This skips over having to first select an item from the list.
1.5 You have a variety of printed reports. Some are useful; some are for the attorneys and their clients.
1.6 To Summarize:
The 4 steps, you’ve just completed;. .
1. Entered the data
2. Analyzed the data
3. Printed the data
4. Saved the data
. . . On to the next case.
elp: You can get help in several ways.
1. Press F1 and you have access to the entire CFLR manual.
2. Down at the bottom of the summary page, on the left you will see a tab that says “Dynamic Help”. When you press on the tab it will instantly provide you with help on any item that you have highlighted.
3. Click on “Help” at the top and use the standard “index and contents” or click on the “video help” and listen to Steve.
4. Call me wherever you can find me. Currently it looks like Department F-9 at the Bradley Building at 687-2004.
This teaching guide was created by the Hon. Edward B. Huntington for the San Diego Superior Court. Dissomaster is a product of CFLR and Thomson/West Publishing Co. Permission for limited reproduction may be obtained at (619) 557-2012 or nedley@san.rr.com.
LINDQUIST/NEDLEY PRINTING CO. LTD. - January 1, 2007