Colorado builds child support on both parents’ incomes, and the statute defines income broadly. It starts with gross income from nearly every source, subtracts a short list of items to reach adjusted gross income, and then runs the combined figure through a schedule. Getting that first number right matters more than most parents expect, because everything downstream is a percentage of it.
The harder question is what happens when income is not a simple paycheck. Colorado addresses self-employment, bonuses, overtime, and parents who are not working at capacity through specific rules in C.R.S. § 14-10-115, and those provisions drive more disputes than the schedule itself.
What the statute counts as gross income
The statute starts with income from any source, then gives a broad and expressly non-exclusive list of examples. That list includes salaries, wages, commissions, bonuses, dividends, severance pay, pensions and retirement benefits, royalties, rents, interest, trust income, annuities, and capital gains. It also reaches unemployment benefits, workers’ compensation, disability insurance benefits, monetary gifts, and monetary prizes.
Two entries catch people off guard. Monetary gifts count as income, which surprises parents receiving regular family help. Income from general partnerships, limited partnerships, closely held corporations, and limited liability companies counts as well, though the statute limits recognition to actual cash distributions when a parent is a passive investor holding a minority interest with no managerial duties or input.
Overtime is the notable carve-out. It counts only if the employer requires the overtime as a condition of employment, so voluntary overtime generally stays out of the calculation.
Excluded does not mean invisible. The statute separately identifies consistent overtime not counted in gross income, and income from employment beyond a full-time job, as circumstances a court may weigh in deciding whether to deviate from the guideline amount.
What the statute leaves out
Four exclusions matter most. Child support payments received for other children do not count. Neither do benefits from means-tested public assistance programs, including Colorado Works, supplemental security income, food stamps, and general assistance.
Income from additional jobs is excluded when it results in employment beyond forty hours per week, or beyond what would otherwise be full-time work. A parent working a second job to stay afloat is not penalized for it in the guideline number.
Earnings or gains inside a retirement account are also excluded until the parent takes a distribution. There is a narrower rule attached: if a distribution could be taken without an early-withdrawal penalty and the parent chooses not to take it, the court may still consider it, but only where the parent is not otherwise employed full-time and the account did not come from the division of marital property.
Self-employment and business income
For self-employment, rent, royalties, a proprietorship, or joint ownership of a partnership or closely held corporation, gross income equals gross receipts minus the ordinary and necessary expenses required to produce that income. The phrase is narrower than it sounds.
The statute expressly excludes the accelerated component of depreciation expenses and investment tax credits from ordinary and necessary expenses, though a court may consider straight-line depreciation where appropriate. Courts may also disregard other business expenses they find inappropriate for calculating support.
One provision closes a common gap. Money a self-employed parent draws for personal use, but deducts as a business expense, is counted as income from self-employment. Running personal costs through a business does not remove them from the calculation.
Getting from gross to adjusted gross income
Adjusted gross income generally starts with gross income and subtracts preexisting child support obligations and maintenance actually paid, subject to the statute’s specific maintenance provisions. Where maintenance is deductible for federal tax purposes and involves the same parties as the child support calculation, the actual amount is used.
Different rules apply to maintenance that is not deductible. For certain non-deductible maintenance between the same parties, the statute applies a 1.25 multiplier when the relevant parties’ combined monthly adjusted gross income is $10,000 or less and 1.33 when it exceeds $10,000. Where non-deductible court-ordered maintenance involves parties other than those in the child support calculation, a 1.25 multiplier applies, and in each case the multiplier operates as a rebuttable presumption.
A parent who is legally responsible for supporting other children, for whom the parents in this case do not share joint legal responsibility, may also receive an adjustment before the basic obligation is calculated. How it works depends on the circumstances. Where that child lives in the parent’s home, the adjustment is seventy-five percent of the schedule amount representing an obligation based on that parent’s income alone, while support paid under another order or for a child living elsewhere is handled through the amount actually paid or documented, subject to the statute’s limits.
When a court uses potential income instead
If a parent is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed, support is calculated on potential income rather than actual earnings. The statute identifies three exceptions to the potential-income determination: a parent who is physically or mentally incapacitated, a parent caring for a child under twenty-four months for whom the parents owe joint legal responsibility, and an incarcerated parent sentenced to one hundred eighty days or more.
A parent is also not treated as underemployed in three defined circumstances. The employment is temporary and reasonably intended to produce higher income in the foreseeable future. The employment is a good faith career choice that is not intended to deprive a child of support and does not unreasonably reduce available support. Or the parent is enrolled in a qualifying educational or vocational program that meets the conditions the statute lists.
When a court does impute, it works through a long factor list rather than picking a number. That list includes the parent’s assets, employment and earnings history, job skills, educational attainment, literacy, age, health, criminal record, other employment barriers, record of seeking work, the local job market, prevailing earnings in the community, and transportation. Only where that information is unavailable does the statute fall back to a reasonable rate of pay for a thirty-two-hour workweek across fifty weeks a year.
Documentation decides most of these fights
The statute directs that income statements be verified with documentation of both current and past earnings. Pay stubs, employer statements, or receipts and expenses for the self-employed establish current earnings, and those are supplemented with the most recent tax return to show a longer view. Wage information from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment database is admissible for this purpose.
The practical consequence is that contested income cases are won on records. A parent whose compensation varies year to year, or who owns a business, should expect scrutiny of returns, distributions, and expense categories rather than a single pay stub. The judicial branch’s support calculation resources show what the worksheets require, though they cannot resolve a genuine dispute over what a parent’s income actually is.
Room to argue outside the number
The guidelines operate as a rebuttable presumption, not a ceiling or a floor. A court may deviate where applying them would be inequitable, unjust, or inappropriate, and any deviation requires written or oral findings stating the reasons and the presumed amount without the deviation.
Several listed grounds relate directly to income. Consistent overtime not captured in gross income, a gross disparity in income between the parents, and a parent’s ownership of a substantial asset that produces no income are all recognized bases a court may weigh. None of these factors requires a deviation, and the statute also permits deviation when no specifically listed factor is present.
Parents facing a support calculation built on variable, self-employed, or disputed income are usually better served by addressing it before an order enters than by challenging the figure later. Johnson Law Group handles Colorado child support matters where income is the contested issue, and an early conversation about documentation tends to cost less than a fight over a number already on the books.
