NJ Alimony & Spousal Support Calculator New Jersey Divorce Attorneys Morristown Morris Essex County

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If you are contemplating a NJ divorce or are already involved in the divorce process, you probably will have questions about alimony, which is also known as spousal support. The calculation of alimony payments in NJ, unlike child support payments, is not calculated using any specific formula. In this article, I will explain what goes into the calculation of the alimony payment in New Jersey and what factors are taken into account.

Information Your Lawyer Will Need Before Calculating Alimony

To help you determine the potential alimony involved in your divorce matter, your family law attorney will need a variety of information. The first thing your New Jersey divorce lawyer will ask to see is your tax returns, pay stubs and W-2 forms for both you and your spouse so that each of your incomes can be examined. In addition to an income analysis, it is important for you to document for your lawyer the expenses that make up your marital standard of living. Ideally, this information will be utilized to achieve an alimony award that will enable you to live a lifestyle reasonably comparable to that which was enjoyed during your marriage.

Calculating Alimony

After you have disclosed the income for both you and your spouse, you will need to prepare a budget in order to identify your monthly expenses for housing, transportation, child and other personal related expenses. All of this information will be recorded on a Case Information Statement which will serve as a road-map and guide to make sure that you capture all budget related items. The Case Information Statement will help your NJ family lawyer determine if you have enough income to meet your monthly needs or if you will experience a financial shortfall. If there is not enough net income to pay for your standard monthly expenses, then spousal support may be appropriate. As I mentioned earlier in this article, alimony calculations are not based off of a specific equation or formula. Statutory factors are considered before an appropriate amount of spousal support can be fixed.

Factors Considered When Calculating Alimony

In order for your divorce lawyer to assess the amount and duration of the New Jersey alimony payment in your matter, your attorney will evaluate the following factors that are set forth in the New Jersey Statute which governs alimony:

(1) Actual need and ability of the parties to pay;

(2) Duration of the marriage;

(3) Age, physical and emotional health of the parties;

(4) Standard of living established in the marriage and the likelihood that each party can maintain a reasonably comparable standard of living;

(5) Earning capacities, educational levels, vocational skills, and employability of the parties;

(6) Length of absence from the job market of the party seeking maintenance;

(7) Parental responsibilities for the children;

(8) Time and expense necessary to acquire sufficient education or training to enable the party seeking maintenance to find appropriate employment, the availability of the training and employment, and the opportunity for future acquisitions of capital assets and income;

(9) History of the financial or non-financial contributions to the marriage by each party including contributions to the care and education of the children and interruption of personal careers or educational opportunities;

(10) Equitable distribution of property ordered and any payouts on equitable distribution, directly or indirectly, out of current income, to the extent this consideration is reasonable, just and fair;

(11) Income available to either party through investment of any assets held by that party;

(12) Tax treatment and consequences to both parties of any alimony award, including the designation of all or a portion of the payment as a non-taxable payment; and

(13) Any other factors which the court may deem relevant.

If you are involved in a New Jersey divorce matter where alimony is a contested issue, you should take the time to speak to a Certified NJ divorce lawyer whose entire practice is exclusively devoted to family and matrimonial law. For more information about New Jersey divorce and family law related matters or to download a free copy of my divorce guide, visit my web-site at www.weinbergerlawgroup.com.

This article was authored by Bari Weinberger, the founding partner at Weinberger Law Group, LLC. Bari is a prominent and highly sought after New Jersey divorce and family law attorney. She is Certified by the Supreme Court of NJ as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, a certification achieved by only 2% of the attorneys in New Jersey. Ms. Weinberger is also the associate author of the New Jersey Family Law Practice, a 5-volume treatise utilized by virtually every family law judge and attorney in the State. Her practice is located in Morris County, just minutes from Morristown and she represents clients throughout NJ including the following counties: Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren.