Gross vs Net Income in Child Support: Why States Differ

Before any state applies its percentages or tables, it has to decide what income means. Gross states start from pay before taxes. Net states subtract a defined list of items first. The list is set by statute or rule, and it is never the same as your paycheck’s bottom line.

This choice matters more than it sounds. On the same $5,000 monthly salary, a gross state runs its table against $5,000 while a net state might run its formula against roughly $4,200. Neither approach is a trick. They are different answers to the same design problem: how to measure what a parent can actually spare.

Texas computes support as a percentage of the obligor’s monthly net resources. The deductions are fixed by Family Code section 154.062: Social Security taxes, federal income tax figured as if the parent were single with one exemption and the standard deduction, state income tax, union dues, and the cost of the child’s health and dental coverage.

Nobody does this arithmetic by hand. The Attorney General publishes tax charts every year that convert gross to net in one lookup. Under the 2026 charts, $5,000 in monthly gross wages becomes $4,199.17 in net resources: $310.00 of Social Security, $72.50 of Medicare, and $418.33 of federal income tax come off the top.

Notice what the definition ignores. Your actual filing status, your actual withholding, and your 401(k) contributions do not change Texas net resources. The statute standardizes the taxpayer so that two parents with the same gross always get the same net.

Georgia’s income shares formula runs on gross income. Income taxes are never subtracted. The state’s support table was built with average tax burdens already baked into its numbers, so deducting taxes again would double count them.

Georgia does allow a few narrow adjustments on the way to adjusted gross income: half of self-employment taxes for the self-employed, support actually paid under preexisting orders, and a discretionary credit for other qualified children in the home. But a W-2 employee’s starting number is simply their gross pay.

The upside is simplicity and fewer disputes, since gross pay is easy to prove. The trade-off is that the table’s built-in tax assumption fits the average case, not necessarily yours.

Illinois shows the hybrid path. Its income shares formula uses net income, but instead of asking parents to prove their taxes, the state publishes an annual Gross to Net Income Conversion Table with standardized tax amounts. You find your gross bracket and read off your net.

The 2026 table even has two columns, because the parent with the majority of parenting time is assumed to claim dependency-related tax benefits. A parent grossing about $4,000 a month converts to $3,222 of standardized net with majority parenting time, but $3,167 without it.

A parent can instead elect an individualized net based on actual taxes, and courts can order it. Most cases use the table, which is why Illinois refreshes it every year as tax law shifts.

Florida and Pennsylvania are true net states, each with its own deduction list. Florida subtracts income taxes at your actual filing status, FICA, union dues, mandatory retirement, health insurance premiums other than the child’s, and support actually paid for other children or a former spouse. Pennsylvania nets out taxes, FICA, mandatory union dues, mandatory retirement, and alimony paid to the other party. Michigan and California also build on net figures, with California’s formula using net monthly disposable income.

North Carolina and Ohio sit on the gross side with Georgia, and New York starts from gross income but subtracts FICA and New York City or Yonkers taxes actually paid, landing in between. So even the labels blur: what matters is each state’s exact list, which is why every state page on this site spells out its own definition with the statute cited.