About Texas Child Support Forms
If you're a divorced parent in Texas, you will want to become familiar with Texas child support forms. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) is the official child support enforcement agency who helps both custodial and non-custodial parents with child support payments. Whether you are the custodial parent who receives child support payments or the non-custodial parent paying child support, it's important to understand how the process works.
The OAG works with parents and court orders to establish paternity and set up child support payments. If a court order is issued due to divorce, the OAG is the governing agency that receives and distributes the child support payments. This process makes it easier on parents, as the OAG is the responsible party for collection issues. Payments are made directly to the OAG, who tracks all payments. Both the custodial and non-custodial parent will set up accounts. Then the parents can see when payments are made, and how much the payments are.
The State of Texas has standard child support laws ordering parents to make a child support payment at the minimum of one time per month. However, parents can make biweekly or weekly payments depending on their pay periods. Typically, the non-custodial parent's wages are garnished by his or her employer. This means the parent's employer has a copy of the child support court order. The employer follows the payment orders according to how often the parent is paid.
Child support, by Texas law, is a percentage of the non-custodial parent's net income. What the parent pays depends upon what his or her net income is and how many children the parent is supporting. In most cases, non-custodial parents pay child support on time, but should the parent get behind, the OAG steps in to rectify the arrearage.
In some cases, private child support agencies or county domestic relations offices can also work as the agency that collects child support payments. Private agencies often charge a fee for the collection process.
