> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://blog.puzzlegroup.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Seasonal Work, Tips and Employer Housing: How Jackson Income Is Counted for Child Support - URL: https://blog.puzzlegroup.com/jackson-seasonal-income-child-support/ - Published: 2026-10-01T14:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-01T14:00:00.000Z - Description: Wyoming's child support statute counts any payment "in money or in kind, regardless of source," then carves out overtime, business expenses and the parent who chose to earn less. In a valley of seasonal jobs, tips and housing that comes with the job, those clauses decide the number. - Author: Aaron Herzberg - Tags: Family Law, Child Custody, Divorce Child support in Wyoming is arithmetic. Two net monthly incomes go into a table and a number comes out. The fights are almost never about the table. They are about what goes into it, and in Teton County the inputs do not look like the inputs in a city. Income here arrives in seasons, in cash, in housing, in a guide's day rate and a bartender's tips and a lift operator's pass. The statute has a clause for each of those, and this article walks through them. ## The definition, first "Income" under the statute "means any form of payment or return in money or in kind to an individual, regardless of source." It goes on to list wages, salary, commissions, independent-contractor compensation, workers' compensation, unemployment, disability, annuity and retirement benefits, "and any other payments made by any payor." Then it subtracts three things. Overtime is left out unless the court, "after considering all overtime earnings derived in the preceding twenty-four (24) month period, determines the overtime earnings can reasonably be expected to continue on a consistent basis." For the self-employed, "all reasonable unreimbursed legitimate business expenses shall be deducted." And means-tested benefits, food assistance, SSI, Pell grants and the like, are not income at all. One more sentence does a lot of work: "Gross income also means potential income of parents who are voluntarily unemployed or underemployed." ## Seasonal income A ski patroller, a fishing guide, a wrangler or a landscaper does not earn twelve equal months. The table wants a monthly figure. The honest way to get there is the annual figure divided by twelve, supported by the documents the statute requires: "pay stubs, employer statements, or receipts and expenses if self-employed," plus the most recent tax return. The Judicial Branch packet asks for two years of returns, and two years is the right frame for seasonal work because it smooths a good winter against a bad one. A parent who files an affidavit in April using April's pay stubs, or in December using December's, is either overstating or understating by half, and the other side will say so. The overtime rule cuts both ways in a resort economy. A hotel employee who has worked fifty-hour weeks every winter for two years will find the overtime counted, because the court can find it is expected to continue. A person who picked up extra shifts for one busy season and then stopped will not. The twenty-four-month window is the evidence, and the affidavit should show it. ## Tips Tips are income. The definition says "regardless of source," and a tip is a payment to an individual. The problem with tips is proof. Reported tips appear on the pay stub and the W-2\. Unreported tips do not, and the parent receiving them has an obvious reason to leave them off the affidavit. The affidavit is sworn. The other parent can subpoena the employer's tip records, the point-of-sale reports, and the bank deposits, and a pattern of cash deposits that does not match the reported wage is the kind of evidence a judge notices. In a contested case, a tipped worker's income is usually established by deposits, not by the stub. ## Housing and other pay in kind A lot of Jackson jobs come with a bed. Employee housing at a rate below market, a cabin on the ranch, a room over the shop. The statute's phrase is "in money or in kind," and the ordinary reading is that housing furnished as part of the job is income in kind, valued at what it saves the parent compared with paying rent. The same is true of a vehicle, a season pass, or meals. What the court will want is a number, which means evidence of the market rent for the unit and what, if anything, the employee pays for it. This is a point where I see affidavits that simply leave the housing off, and an affidavit that omits several hundred dollars a month of in-kind value is not a complete disclosure. ## The guide, the contractor, and the Schedule C A self-employed parent's income is receipts less "reasonable unreimbursed legitimate business expenses." That is not the same as the bottom line of a tax return. Depreciation, the home office, the truck that is also the family car, and the meals that were also dinner are deductions the IRS allows and a support court may not, because the question in family court is what money the parent actually has available, not what the tax code lets him treat as spent. Expect the other side to go through the Schedule C line by line. A guide who runs his own outfit should come to the affidavit with the books, not just the return. ## The parent who chose to earn less Imputed income is where the statute bites hardest. If a parent is "voluntarily unemployed or underemployed," support is computed on "the potential earning capacity (imputed income)" of that parent, and the statute tells the court what to consider: prior employment experience and history, education and whether more of it would raise income, the presence of the children in the parent's home and its effect on earnings, the availability of jobs the parent is qualified for, prevailing local wage rates, special skills or training, and "whether the parent is realistically able to earn imputed income." In practice that means a parent who left a salaried job after the separation to guide part time, or who took the winter off, will usually be treated as earning what he earned before. The court is not obliged to accept a lifestyle choice as a change in income. It is also not obliged to impute income to a parent who is home with a young child, because the statute makes the presence of the children in the home a factor, or to a parent who cannot in fact get the job the other side says is available. The evidence is job listings, wage data, and the parent's own résumé, and the parent who says he cannot earn more should be ready to show what he applied for. ## Net income, and then the table Once income is settled, net income is income less income taxes, Social Security, the cost of the children's health coverage, support actually being paid for other children under earlier orders, and mandatory pension deductions. Arrears payments do not come off. The two net figures go into the table, and the state's online calculator will do the arithmetic if you give it net numbers rather than gross. ## When the season changes Because seasonal income moves, support orders in this county get revisited. An order more than six months old can be reviewed if the table applied to current income would move support by twenty percent or more, and that showing is by itself a change of circumstances. A real change, a business sold, a job lost, an injury, can be brought at any time. Modification is not retroactive except by agreement or back to the date the petition was served, so the parent whose income fell in November and who files in April carries the gap. File when the change happens. The affidavit you filed last time is the baseline the court will compare against, which is one more reason to get it right the first time. This article is general information about Wyoming law, not advice about your case.