[quote=scaredyclassic]How about this set up. No more marriage. The wealthier spouse simply employs the less wealthy spouse as a domestic engineer. All the household expenses are probably tax deductible, since the business is the business of raising baby. Also satsisfying certain needs of the employer.. the engineer is at a lower tax bracket than the employer, so there’s a tax advantage beyond deducting all sorts of things that otherwise wouldn’t be deductible if this work weren’t employment and valued appropriately. On the bright side for the employer, there’s no community to divide upon divorce, because there’s no divorce, simply employer employee. Also, the employer can just give the employee the boot at any time, assuming we’re in an at will state. Since everything’s being fully compensated at an agreed upon market value, there’s no need to pay any alimony. Child support still applies, but that’s just the cost fo doing business. Check with your acct to see if that might eb tax deductible under these circumstances.
This seems like a better deal all around. No illusions. No uncompensated work. Lesser women will have to work for lesser employers and it may be very lwo wage, but that’s their decision, to work for a very small business. They need to work for a larger more thriving concern if they want their work valued appropriately to what they feel it’s worth. If the employer provides any service to the spouse, that’s service may be deducted from wages. Vacation and various employment rules apply, so more than one spouse for child care may be required, as there are limits on shift work, breaks, etc. [/quote]
scaredy, if you’re saying the payor parent is technically responsible for 50% of the care of kids the parents have together and will compensate the other parent for the other 50%, it would seem to me that the other parent would have a FT job until the last kid was in school FT. After that, they may only have a PT job, depending upon the activities of the children. With HS age kids, the other parent will likely have a part, part time position or even be unemployed, depending on how independent (and sensible) those HS age kids are, lol.
In your scenario, I feel the other parent (if female) should be compensated extra for the time they are carrying children because it is hard to hold down FT work for many pregnant women and can be a hassle to lose all the excess weight afterwards. The woman should set the rate and if the employer parent doesn’t want to pay it, they should decline the childbearing job.
I’m all for streamlining CA child support law but I believe the chief problem is that child support is set solely on custody timeshare percentages and disparity between the parents’ incomes. This invites litigation by both parties to discredit each other in effort to grab as much custody timeshare percentage as they think the other parent will cave to (due to inability to litigate or not having money to litigate the issue). It also invites parents who had little to zero interaction with their kids until the “breakup” to suddenly become “parent of the year” in the eyes of the law and petition to grab their 50%+.
