This is an issue that can be used in bargaining with your spouse to reach a settlement of the support issue. Arrangements adopted by courts and parties vary from alternating the exemptions annually, allowing one parent to retain the exemptions as long as it is available, to dividing the exemptions based on the number of children. Be creative with this issue but do not get excessively involved in a dispute because it is generally not greatly financially beneficial. Activity expenses The parent paying child support is not usually obligated to pay for additional activities unless agreed to by both parties. At the same time, the paying parent cannot dictate to the parent receiving support the activities in which the children will participate.
Parents can often agree to divide the costs of the extracurricular activities of the children.
However, if no agreement is reached and if the paying parent wants the children to participate in a given program, then that parent will be obligated to pay for it and vice versa. One additional concern regarding activities of the children relates to visitation. A tactic frequently used by parents to interfere with visitation is to schedule the children's activities during visitation periods. This simply is not in the best interest of the parties and the children. In fact, this situation frequently leads to additional legal expenses when a parent is forced to file a motion with the court when the children's activities are purposely scheduled to conflict with visitation.