Can I offset the travel expense from the child support amount? 7 Answers as of January 04, 2012

You would be far safer to file an Order to Show Cause seeking permission from the Court to offset the travel expenses against child support, and seeking sanctions against your ex-wife for refusing to allow the children to fly, if her refusal was unjustified. However, if she had valid reasons for not letting the children fly (age, lack of an accompanying adult, etc.), you shouldn't file an OSC. It would wise for you to try to work out a resolution of the travel issues with your ex-wife, to avoid further problems. Child support is for the benefit of the children, and you could create problems for yourself with the Court if you deduct the travel expense from child support without your ex-wife's written consent or an order of the Court allowing you to do so.

I suggest you go back to court to get an order setting out exactly how much she owes you and then levy on her job or her bank account.

Unless you have a court order that allows you to deduct these expenses from the support, you should not deduct them. You have even deeper issues to address beyond the travel reimbursement costs. The problem you face on implementing visitation along with the reimbursement issue should be returned to court on a motion. Please meet with an experienced family law attorney to explore your legal options.

No, you can not deduct the expense from child support but you may be able to seek a new order for the payment of those expenses in a sum certain amount.

Child support is for the children and cannot be offset by adult expenses. The money is the least of your worries. You should get an attorney and file contempt for not complying with the court order re visitation and shared expenses.

I would suggest filing a motion to get credit for this against your child support obligation, rather than simply reducing your support payment to compensate. Then, for future support, I would have the average monthly amount included in the calculation so that you don't have to worry about collecting from your ex.

It depends on what the order states. You are usually not able to reduce support orders to offset other obligations. Furthermore, travel expenses are usually not part of child support. Thus, I would say no. If it was ordered as child support, you would have an argument that you are offsetting one support with another. Here, both of you might have been ordered to share that expense but it may not be a child support order. Practically, I know people do this all the time and wait to see if the other parent will take them to court to address it.