Parenting time and child support

During consultations, people ask me if parenting time affects child support. The answer is yes it can but it depends. Child support can be reduced depending upon the amount of court ordered parenting time. For instance, if there is no court ordered parenting time, then child support will not be reduced even if the parent exercises parenting time on a regular basis. People should be aware too that if a parent has court ordered parenting time but does not exercise their parenting time, that parent can still get a reduction in child support based upon the percent of court ordered parenting time. This was recently addressed by the Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion, Hesse v. Hesse, A08-2255 (Minn. App. 12/1/2009) (Minn. Appl. 2009). In this case, the father had court ordered parenting time of more than 45.1%; therefore, he met the requirement for a reduction in his child support obligation. The mother argued that since the father did not exercise his two weeks of vacation, his parenting time was less than 45.1%. Minn. Stat. 518A.36, subd. 1(a) states that the "percentage of parenting time means the percentage of time a child is scheduled to spend with the parent during a calendar year according to a court order." As a result, the child support was modified based on the court ordered percentage of parenting time and not the amount of actual parenting time that the father exercised during a calendar year.