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Facts: Mother and Father, the parents of two children, divorced. Mother had 194 days of parenting time, and Father had 171 days.

A little over a year after their divorce, Father petitioned to change the parenting plan because Mother allegedly “shared intimate and untrue details of the parties’ divorce” with the children. Father proposed a parenting plan that significantly increased his parenting time.

Shortly before trial, Mother started a full-time job as an elementary school teacher. Her gross salary from that employment was $44,904 a year. Mother testified that she lived in a three-bedroom home owned by her parents and that her parents paid the mortgage, utilities, and the cost of Internet access. Mother did not pay rent to her parents. Her parents also paid her monthly car payment of $650. Finally, Mother testified that her grandmother had given her $11,000 since the divorce.

While the trial court found that some of Mother’s actions were inappropriate, it found the existing parenting plan remained in the children’s best interest and declined to change it.

The trial court also changed child support and based Mother’s income only on her income from employment.

Father appealed.

On Appeal: The Court of Appeals affirmed the decision not to change the parenting plan but vacated the calculation of Mother’s income for child support.

Tennessee’s Child Support Guidelines require that the calculation of a parent’s gross income “shall include all income from any source.” It expressly includes “gifts that consist of cash or other liquid instruments, or which can be converted to cash, or which can produce income such as real estate, or which reduces a parent’s living expenses such as housing paid by others, in whole or in part.”

The Court found the trial court erred by not including the gifts Mother receives from her family when calculating Mother’s income for child support:

This Court has previously considered financial gifts from family when calculating the party’s income for child support purposes. Therefore, we conclude that the trial court’s failure to consider such gifts to and payment of expenses on behalf of Mother was error such that the court’s determination of Mother’s gross income and resultant child support calculation must be vacated.

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Mother does raise an important point, however, respecting the lack of evidence at trial concerning the amount of expenses paid on her behalf. Specifically, no evidence was provided concerning the amount of the payments made by Mother’s parents for the home in which she resides, including amounts for utilities and other recurring costs. Accordingly, we must remand this issue to the trial court for further hearing as needed and a determination regarding Mother’s gross income upon consideration of gifts or payment of living expenses by Mother’s family. The trial court will then be required to recalculate child support utilizing the proper gross income amount for Mother.

The Court vacated the trial court’s determinations regarding child support and Mother’s gross income and remanded those issues to the trial court for further proceedings.

Source: Brewster v. Brewster (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Eastern Section, September 24, 2024).

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