Court Opinion

ID: 9628874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:33:28.047971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:21.084003
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
dissenting.
Today’s opinion remands this case to determine whether Thomas had a “valid economic reason” for moving to the barracks. Op. at 420. The opinion also states that Thomas would not be entitled to a modification in child support payments if he gave up the off-base housing allowances “simply to reduce his child support obligation.” Id. This suggests that child support savings cannot be considered in determining the validity of Thomas’s reasons for moving.
Given that economic validity is the test, I see no justification for ignoring the surcharge which Civil Rule 90.3 imposes on Thomas’s income and benefits. In his case the surcharge is thirty-three percent of his adjusted income. Rational people commonly structure their financial affairs in ways which legally minimize their taxes, and the Civil Rule 90.3 surcharge is, from the standpoint of an obligor, indistinguishable from a tax. When an obligor is offered a choice of levels of in-kind benefits by his employer, I think an obligor should be able to choose a low level based on his belief that a higher level would be more than he needs and too expensive when the 90.3 surcharge is taken into account.
One consequence of the majority’s exclusion of child support savings in determining whether an obligor’s choice is economically valid is that an obligor who is offered various levels of employer-supplied housing may have to accept the most valuable level available.1 As today’s opinion points out, there is case law for the proposition that an obligor may not refuse the highest level of monetary income which he could reasonably earn. Does this mean that the obligor must also accept the highest level of in-kind benefits which he is offered? I think that the answer should be “no.” Additional money can always be spent for child support, but the added value represented by more expensive in-kind benefits cannot.
*422For example, if an obligor refuses a monetary raise of $1000 per month, it may be right to impute to him the amount which he has foregone as income for Civil Rule 90.3 purposes. Assuming that his 90.3 surcharge is thirty-three percent, accepting the raise would cost him $330, but he could readily afford this because his income would be increased by $1000. Contrast this with the case of an obligor who is offered a $1500 apartment as in-kind compensation, but instead selects a more modest one having a value of $500. Taxing him on the $1000 difference in value which he has foregone is a much more questionable proposition. Accepting the more valuable apartment would not supply the means of paying the child support surcharge. The employee may rationally decline the more expensive apartment because it would cost him $330 in 90.3 payments without, unlike a monetary raise, carrying with it the means for making the additional payments. It is this difference between monetary and in-kind compensation which leads me to conclude that an employee should not be penalized for declining to accept the highest level of employer-offered in-kind compensation.
The rationale for including in-kind compensation within the concept of income for Civil Rule 90.3 purposes is that the value of in-kind compensation reduces the obligor’s living expenses thus freeing funds which can be used to pay child support. The commentary to Civil Rule 90.3 states that income includes “perquisites or in-kind compensation to the extent that they are significant and reduce living expenses_” Commentary 90.3 III. A.19. The concept of reduction of living expenses implies a normal range for such expenses. If, to revert to the example used in the preceding paragraph, an obligor would normally spend $500 on housing and is offered and accepts a $1500 apartment from his employer, his reduction in expenses would be $500 rather than $1500.
Arguably this suggests that when an obli-gor declines an in-kind benefit at a higher level in favor of a lower level, imputation of income would be appropriate to the extent of the savings to the obligor measured by what the obligor would normally be expected to. spend for the benefit given his socio-economic status. Arguably too, when an employee accepts high-level in-kind benefits, he should be able to argue that the imputation of income should reflect not the value of the benefits but the living expenses which he would normally incur left to his own devices. These suggestions, however, seem too imprecise, difficult to administer, and too intrusive into personal lifestyle choices to be generally adopted. Instead, the rule which I favor is simply that an obligor should be charged with the value of the in-kind benefits which he accepts.
In my view this rule should be applied to this case. Thus on remand the court should be directed to make findings based on the evidence as to the value of Thomas’s employer-provided housing. That value should be imputed to Thomas’s income, and child support payments should be calculated considering it along with Thomas’s other income. If the payments as so calculated are more than fifteen percent less than the payments under the current support order, the current payments should be modified.

. Thomas, in substance, is offered a choice of levels of housing for which his employer will pay. He may accept a room in the barracks or he may accept a housing allowance of approximately $900 which is designed to defray the costs of off-base housing. This choice differentiates Thomas’s case from that of a typical employee who receives no housing benefits.