Base salary is the easy part of a Florida child support calculation. The fights start with everything stacked on top: the overtime that varies by season, the annual bonus that may or may not repeat, the commissions that made last year an outlier. Space Coast paychecks — aerospace program bonuses, port overtime, first-responder shift differentials, military special pays — are full of exactly these components, and how they are counted moves support by hundreds of dollars a month. From The Law Office of John Vernon Moore, P.A. in Melbourne.
The Rule: Regular and Continuous Counts
Section 61.30 includes bonuses, commissions, allowances, overtime, tips, and similar payments in gross income when they are regular and continuous — the operative test Florida courts apply. Overtime worked steadily for three years is income; a one-time crunch during a launch campaign is arguably not. The recurring annual bonus is income; the true one-off retention payment is a fight. The question is never whether the money arrived — it is whether it reliably will again, and the evidence is history: pay records over a representative period, employer verification of programs and policies, and the pattern the numbers themselves reveal.
Averaging: The Battleground Inside the Battleground
Once variable pay counts, the question becomes how much — and the answer is an average over a representative window, typically one to three years, with each side advocating the window that favors them. The payor who worked heroic overtime during a program surge argues that era is over; the recipient argues the pattern persists. What decides it: trajectory evidence (is the overtime program continuing? did the employer end the bonus plan?), employer testimony or letters, and the credibility earned by proposing honest numbers rather than convenient ones. Two structural notes: courts can build support on base pay plus a percentage of future variable pay as received — an elegant solution for genuinely unpredictable compensation that spares both parties serial modifications; and deliberately declining customary overtime as a support case pends walks straight into imputation, because voluntary underemployment includes voluntarily shrinking your own paycheck.
The Special Cases
Military pay: BAH, BAS, and special pays count as income for Florida support purposes even where tax law ignores them — a calculation with enough wrinkles that it earns its own treatment in our military child support guide and military practice. Commissions-heavy careers — realtors, sales professionals: multi-year averaging is nearly mandatory, and the market cycle argument runs both directions. Tips: reported or not, they are income, and lifestyle analysis reaches the unreported kind. RSUs and equity compensation: vesting schedules create income streams courts increasingly treat like bonuses — regular, continuous, and countable as they vest, with valuation questions layered on top for the high-income cases where they cluster.
When Variable Pay Changes After the Order
The order built on peak overtime meets the year the overtime dies — or the bonus program doubles. Either direction, the mechanism is modification on the 15%-or-$50 substantial change standard, and the discipline is the same as everywhere in support law: file promptly, because adjustment runs from the filing date; document the change through employer records, not assertions; and keep paying the ordered amount meanwhile, because self-help builds arrears no later ruling erases. Payors with honestly variable income should also keep the percentage-order structure in mind at the original hearing — the best modification is the one the order design made unnecessary.
Frequently Asked Questions
My overtime is voluntary. Does it still count?
If it is regular and continuous, yes — the voluntariness of accepting it does not remove it from income, and strategically declining it mid-case invites imputation at the historical level.
My annual bonus is discretionary and not guaranteed. Countable?
A bonus paid year after year is regular and continuous whatever the plan document calls it. A genuinely unprecedented payment is the exception — history, not labels, decides.
What proof establishes my ex actually gets overtime and bonuses?
Pay records and W-2s across multiple years through discovery, employer verification, and where needed subpoenas to the employer — variable pay leaves the clearest paper trail in support law.
Can the order just take a percentage of my future bonuses?
Courts can structure exactly that for irregular income — base support on salary plus a defined share of variable pay as received, with documentation duties attached. It is often the fairest architecture for both sides.
Every Dollar Has a Rule — Know Yours
Our team brings over 89 years of combined experience to compensation puzzles from launch-pad overtime to executive equity. Call (321) 529-7777 or contact us online for a free 30-minute consultation.