How it works

Start from gross income from all sources and reach adjusted gross income. Alimony is treated as a deviation in Georgia, not a deduction from income. The income page covers self-employment, imputation, and what counts.

Add both parents' adjusted incomes and read the basic obligation from the schedule at the nearest $50 row for the number of children. The table runs to $40,000/mo combined; above that the court sets the top-row amount and may deviate up.

Each parent's percentage share of combined income is their share of the basic obligation. The noncustodial parent's share is the starting point for what they pay.

The noncustodial parent's share is adjusted by a continuous cross-credit: each parent's court-ordered days are raised to the 2.5 power, cross-multiplied by the other parent's BCSO share, offset, and added back to the noncustodial share. The credit grows steeply as the noncustodial parent's days rise (~47% reduction at 150 days, ~91% at 90) — this is the statutory arithmetic, applied faithfully. There is no threshold or cliff. With no court-ordered parenting time, no adjustment applies.

Health-insurance premiums for the children and work-related child care are added to the obligation and prorated by income share. These are mandatory adjustments, not discretionary deviations.

For a low-income parent, the order is the lesser of the presumptive amount (as changed by deviations) and the (p) table cap. Below $1,500 monthly income the cap is a percentage of that parent's income (19%–28% by number of children). The (p) value is a cap, never the obligation itself, and there is no self-support-reserve subtraction.

The court may deviate from the presumptive amount — for high income, extraordinary educational or medical expenses, special expenses (the 7% screen), alimony, travel, and the catch-all best-interest factor — with written findings that the presumptive amount is unjust or inappropriate and that the deviation serves the child's best interest.