Can I go to jail for not paying child support? 27 Answers as of September 02, 2011

You can be held in contempt of court and held in jail when you fall behind in support after missing a certain number of payments. Voluntarily leaving your job is just digging a deeper whole for yourself. If there has been a change in income for either of you (other than voluntarily quitting your job) or you have other kids to support, you can file a petition with the court to reduce support. Next time keep it in your pants.

Voluntary unemployment can certainly be viewed as a willful refusal to pay child support and you may be held in contempt and incarcerated. I suggest you consult an experienced Family Law attorney to discuss your case in greater detail and learn all of your rights and options. Good luck.

You can be held in contempt of court and put in jail for being in contempt of court until you do what is ordered by the judge.

If a Court finds that you are in contempt for nonpayment then yes you could be placed in jail.

No, but you would still be responsible for the child support and if CSSD is involved, they can issue a bank levy, tax intercept & take away your license.

Why would you want to quit your job? You have a child, and that child deserves your support. If you quit your job, the court will very likely impute income to you and an order will still ensue. That order will follow you wherever you go. You will accrue interest on the original amount, and you may well be ordered to pay attorney fees on top of that for any attempts at enforcement. Along with an exponentially accruing debt, the state has punitive measures for failure to pay: these include loss of your driver's license and can, eventually, include jail time. Better to bite the bullet - you created this child, and this child deserves two parents.

If you become $10,000 or more behind in child support you could be charged with a felony and not paying court ordered child support is a contempt and a misdemeanor which could also put you in jail.

Almost certainly, and likely for a long time.

Yes, If a judge finds you in contempt of court for violating his orders, one possible penalty could be jail time.

If you quit your job with no justification (justified examples: severely reduced hours by management, illness, disability) then the court could impute your last income as the basis for ongoing support. Thus, you've gained nothing but being unemployed with the same level of court ordered support.

You may be found in willful contempt and incarceration is a possibility.

Yes, you can two different ways. Under civil contempt of court for up to 6 months. Or criminally, if you don't pay for 90 days you can be charged with a misdemeanor. If you don't pay for 120 days, you can be charged with a felony.

It's possible you could be held in contempt and contempt can include jail time. In Washington if jail time is proposed, you can get a free attorney to defend you. Quitting your job will look pretty bad. If the court thinks jail time will make you pay somehow, you might spend some time in jail, be fined, pay the Mother's attorney fees and generally spoil your name and future chances of the court looking kindly at you. Why not stay employed?

If you are quitting your job to avoid paying child support, the Court may find you in contempt and you may be incarcerated.

Potentially. There are a couple of ways things could come to that. First, if you are held in contempt of court for failing to pay support, the court has the power to use jail or the threat of jail to force you to pay support. In addition, if you owe more than about $5,000 in back child support and cross a state line for the purposes of avoiding child support, you can be prosecuted federally. The state and the feds both have various other powers to encourage child support payment as well. The state can suspend your driver's license and any other licenses or certificates you may have. The feds can cancel your passport. In other words, the government is fairly serious about people not paying child support.

You could be sent to jail if you are held in contempt of court, and not paying child support that is ordered by the court is one way to be held in contempt. More importantly, even if you quit your job, you still will owe child support, and that will continue to accrue and build up interest. Child support is the obligation owed to help provide for your children, and you are better off working and making sure you make your support payments then trying to get out of it that will only cost you more in the long run and hurt your children also.

Although you cannot be incarcerated for "quitting your job," you can be incarcerated for willfully failing to comply with a child support order.

Based upon your comments, you could be found to be in contempt. You would be given an option to purge the contempt by paying your arrears or be sent to a half-way house to sleep there while they help you find work or you could be incarcerated or you could be sent to a Court-Appointed Work Counselling Program, etc.