What Does It Mean When a Judge Imputes Income During Divorce?

 Posted on May 09, 2025 in Divorce

Divorce proceedings are often complex, particularly when it comes to determining spousal support and child support. Both spouses must accurately report their income and expenses for these determinations. When one or both spouses fail to properly account for their income or expenses or deliberately pursue unemployment or underemployment to deflate support obligations, imputation can be considered an equalizer to rebalance the marital financial scales.

If you believe your spouse quit his or her job deliberately, is willfully underemployed, or failed to report his or her income and expenses accurately, it is time to speak to an experienced Wheaton, IL divorce lawyer. Your attorney can help you determine the best way to present these issues to the court and receive an equitable amount of spousal support or child support.

How Is Imputed Income Determined?

Imputed income allows a family court to ensure the right amount of support is ordered, even when the financial disclosures provided are unreliable. If the judge believes that one spouse deliberately quit a well-paying job so he or she would not have to pay as much child support or spousal support, the judge will impute income.

The amount that the spouse would have made if he or she remained employed will be used, rather than no amount for an unemployed spouse or a lower amount for an underemployed spouse. For example, suppose one spouse is an engineer who typically makes approximately $160,000 per year. After finding out that the other spouse is filing for divorce, he or she quits the engineering job and goes to work for McDonald’s.

In most cases, the judge will use the engineering income in all calculations. Based on several factors, the court concludes that the individual can earn a specific amount, even if he or she is not currently earning that amount. Those factors include:

• The individual’s earning ability is assessed based on education, work history, job opportunities, and skills.
• The individual’s past employment record is crucial in these calculations. A person with a consistent work history in a specific field who is suddenly making significantly less is generally suspect.
• The court will take into consideration a parent who has considerably more parenting time with young children than the other parent if this impacts his or her ability to work full-time.  
• The general health of the spouse and his or her age are considered only if those issues legitimately prevent him or her from working in their chosen field.
• One major consideration is whether unemployment or underemployment is intentional. If so, the court will not look kindly on that spouse.
• The current job market has some role in the income that will be imputed. If it is determined that there is a reasonable expectation that the individual could obtain similar employment in the current job market, the prior income will be imputed.

Basically, income imputation will be implemented when one spouse is deliberately unemployed or underemployed, has recently made a significant career change that resulted in a substantially lower income, is unreasonably pursuing additional education, or is deliberately hiding income. There can be tax consequences from imputed income since the amount imputed is considered taxable by the IRS.

So, if the court imputes a spouse’s income at $12,000 per month while that spouse is only making $2,000 per month, he or she would be responsible for paying income tax on $12,000 per month. In the end, hiding income or deliberately becoming unemployed or underemployed is not a choice that is likely to end well in divorce court.   

Contact a DuPage County, IL Divorce Attorney

In situations that require imputed income, you can benefit from speaking to a Wheaton, IL divorce attorney from Fawell & Fawell. Our firm offers a practical, results-oriented approach. Attorney Fawell was a federal judicial clerk for the Honorable John Darrah and a 711 law clerk for both the DuPage County and Cook County Public Defender’s offices. To schedule your free consultation, call 630-871-2400.