"Bob Whiteside" wrote in message
...

"Anon" wrote in message
ups.com...
In California, as in other states, if you substitute "mother" for
"custodial parent," you won't go far wrong. If that doesn't quite fit,
try
"recipient of child support."

Surely there is a legal definition or precident somewhere.

In my situation, if you calculate the actual days of physical custody,
it turns out the dad has the child 51% of the time (mom has 49%). The
father earns substantially more money than the mother, so after
California child support calculations dad (with a slight majority of
custody) pays mom child support. I'm trying to figure out whether the
mother is the CP by virtue of the fact that she gets a check from dad,
OR if Dad is CP because he has more physical custody. There is a
statute that gives a substantial privledge to the CP, I'm just not
sure who that is in this case. How can I find out, or is it at the
judge's discretion?

The CS system has a bunch of different designations for custodial parents
depending upon which area of Family Law you are talking about. Here are a
few examples:

Sole Custodial Parent - A parent with full legal and physical custody of
minor children. Sometimes called residential or placement custody.
Joint Custodial Parent - Typically a parental agreement where legal
custody
is shared and physical custody is awarded to only one parent. Sometimes
called Joint Legal Custody.
Shared Custodial Parent - A parental agreement where both legal and
physical
custody are awarded to both parents. Sometimes called Joint Legal and
Physical Custody.
Custodial Parent - The IRS designation for a never married parent who had
custody of the child for the greater part of a year and meet the
dependency
test.
Custodial Parent - The IRS designation for a divorced or separated parent
who meets the three criteria in the support test.

The above CLEARLY demonstrates the insanity of the government people.
The fact is that one is either a parent or not a parent, with no third
option. No amount of labelling will change such fact.


The payment status of parents you described above usually ignores the
legal
and physical custody status of the parents because the parents are
designated as the obligor and the obligee. Since you pay that makes you
the
obligor even though you have described being a shared parental custody
parent. Since you have more physical custody that means you can meet
probably meet the IRS as a custodial parent using the dependency test
and/or
the support test to take the child as an exemption.

An emerging area of Family Law is the use of Parenting Plans to allow the
parents to create their own agreements on how the details of
post-relationship details are implemented.

As if the mother is going to forfeit the FREE CASH she gets for keeping her
child fatherless. LOL.