A method of determining income for the purpose of paying either child support or maintenance referenced by the judge in our several pretrial conferences is income averaging. There is a significant body of Illinois case law which looks favorably upon averaging income in appropriate cases. While most of the income averaging cases were decided before the legislature changed the child support statute to allow a base plus a percentage, there are many cases where a base plus a percentage simply is not workable. And given the 2015 maintenance statutory amendments, anticipate that the case law for support regarding income averaging will be far more critical than ever! This is because income is defined the same as maintenance as it is for child support and because what constitutes $250,000 of combined gross income remains undefined.
