Charles Bruce and debtors prison

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. Imputed income is a fascinating topic.

The original definition of imputed income is, essentially, the money that you get by doing it yourself. For instance, if you buy a house instead of renting, the money you would have paid in rent is a form of imputed income. The same is true of doing your own taxes or sweeping your own floors. You have an imputed income from the money you saved in maid and accountant fees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imputed_income

As it pertains to child support, it is the calculation of how much money you *could* make. So, if you worked 70 hours a week as a breadwinner for the family, or your employer paid occasional bonus, or your income was skewed by a big court win or hot real estate commissions, your child support is predicated on that "demonstrated" income generating potential. If you want to retrain for a job which isn't so dangerous, or require so much overtime, that's not an option.

Two questions:
Has any parent ever been jailed for failing to realize his or her imputed income potential unless he or she was a non-custodial parent?
How does this not constitute involuntary servitude?

In my opinion, Mr Bruce is for all logical purposes runaway slave. Worse, actually because he didn't run away, he just didn't work hard enough.

The entire tragic episode could have been avoided if the court had awarded shared custody. Both (attorney) parents could have been free to earn the money required to support the kids within their respective households and not be responsible for the other.

Shared custody should be the default setting unless one parent rejects the idea, moves away or is demonstrably unfit.