No. In Georgia, sharing custody of your child does not end child support, because custody and support are separate questions.
Custody Does Not Include Support
OCGA 19-9-5(a), which lets parents present a custody agreement to the judge, provides that “custody” includes joint custody but “shall not include payment of child support.” Relying on that provision, the Georgia Supreme Court held in Hunt v. Carter, 261 Ga. 259 (1991), that joint legal custody does not prevent a court from ordering a parent to pay support. Our post on joint legal custody explains what that arrangement covers, and our post on both parents’ duty to support explains why the duty survives any custody label.
Equal Time Still Names a Custodial Parent
The guidelines work from a custodial and a noncustodial parent, and they name one even when time is split evenly. If a child “resides equally with both parents,” the custodial parent is “the parent who earns the lesser amount of gross income.” OCGA 19-6-15(a)(9)(B).
For example, in Stoddard v. Meyer, 291 Ga. 739 (2012), the mother kept the title of primary physical custodian, but the child spent equal time with each parent and she earned more. The Georgia Supreme Court held that the statute required the trial court to treat the father as the custodial parent for support purposes, and affirmed the order that she pay him. Stoddard applied an earlier version of the definition, which looked to the lesser support obligation rather than the lesser income.
How Time Affects the Amount
Time with each parent changes the figure through the parenting time adjustment, explained in our post on parenting time and Georgia child support. The rest of the calculation is in our post on Georgia’s income shares model, and a family where each parent has primary custody of a different child is covered in our post on child support in a split parenting case.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!