Comment by frenchman_in_ny

Sadly accurate - and what is worse is that child support laws by state [0] are actually even more dated in their mechanisms, where despite using an "income shares" model, most don't take custody & parenting time into account.

So despite "savings" from a MFJ filing status, when you go back to Single filer or HOH filer, you're penalized on the child support side.

[0] https://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/guideline-model...