A Short Introduction to the Alimony Calculator in Florida
What Is a Florida Alimony Calculator?
A Florida alimony calculator will help an individual to estimate the amount of money they’ll be ordered to pay in alimony. Unfortunately, Florida does not have in place very clear guidelines regarding how to calculate alimony, so there are very few readily available Florida alimony calculators. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t estimate what your own alimony payment will be if you do a little research.
Are There Any Florida Alimony Calculators Available?
One popular Florida alimony calculator does exist. It is very broad, and may not end up reflecting your eventual alimony payment at all. However, you may choose to follow its formula to use as an additional tool when estimating what your Florida alimony payment will be.
Here is the formula for a Florida alimony calculator:
1. Add the Gross Annual Income of both yourself and your spouse. For instance, if one spouse makes $100,000 as a lawyer and the other makes $30,000 as a teacher, add the incomes to get $130,000.
2. Divide the sum of the two Gross Annual Incomes by 2. So $130,000 / 2 = $65,000.
3. Take the lower income (the teacher income) and subtract it to the figure we got in Step #2. So $65,000-$30,000=$35,000.
4. Multiply the resulting number by a fraction ranging from 1/10 at the lowest to 1/5 at the highest. We want to do both fractions since this will give us a possible alimony range later on, in Step #5. So for $35,000, we get $3,500 at the lowest and $7,000 at the highest.
5. Take the results from Step # 4 and subtract them from the result in Step # 3 to give us a range of annual alimony payments. So we do $35,000-$3,500=$31,500 and $35,000 - $7,000=$28,000.
6. If you want to see a monthly payment range from this Florida alimony calculator, then just divide the results from step #5 by 12 months. Therefore, the lowest monthly payment is $2,333.33 and the highest is $2,625.
What Factors Should an Alimony Calculator in Florida Consider?
Remember that the Florida alimony calculator outlined above is much simplified. To really get a good idea of what a Judge may base your ruling on, you must take the following factors into account for your alimony calculator in Florida:
• Length of the marriage: Marriages shorter than 7 years rarely result in alimony awards, and it is most common in marriages of 12 years or more.
• Employment prospects: If there are few employment options for a dependent spouse, alimony may be necessary.
• Age of spouse: The older the spouse, the more likely alimony becomes.
• Marital standard of living: The greater the standard of living, the harder it will be to maintain independently.
• Domestic contributions: If one partner gave up employment prospects to raise a family, then alimony payments should recognize this.
• Income disparity: Alimony is usually called for in cases of great income disparity between the two spouses.