Slices, not one percentage

Published 2026-09-22 · Last reviewed 2026-09-23

Some states print a single percentage per number of children and multiply the whole base by it. A tiered state prints several percentages, and applies each one to a different slice of the income - the way an income tax brackets a wage. Nevada is the example on this page, and it is the cleanest way to see what a graduated schedule does: the share printed at the top of the table is only the share of the first few thousand dollars, and the money you actually send is a sum across slices, not one percentage of everything.

The table reads: 16, 8, then 4

For one child Nevada's own regulation (NAC 425.140) writes the sum of three percentages: 16% of the first $6,000 a month, 8 percent of the next $4,000, and 4 percent of everything above that. On $6,000 a month, the second and third brackets never open, so the whole income is the first slice: $960 a month, which happens to be exactly 16%. The percentages at the top of the table and the rate you actually pay are the same only at the top of the first bracket.

Crossing a bracket does not reprice the income below it

On $8,000, the first $6,000 is still the first bracket's 16%($960), and only the $2,000 above it moves into the second bracket at 8 percent ($160). The total is $1,120 a month - and the effective rate, the total divided by the whole income, is 14%, below the headline 16 percent. The higher slice carries a lower share, so the more the income rises, the more the effective rate falls.

The effective rate keeps falling

Push one child's income to $12,000: $6,000 at 16 percent, $4,000 at 8 percent, and $2,000 at 4 percent add up to $1,360 a month, or $16,320 a year - an effective rate of 11.3%. The number that matters for the budget is not the number at the top of the table but this effective one, because it is the number the money matches. Two children raise every bracket's share, but the shape is the same: $8,000 with two children lands at $1,540 a month, an effective 19.3% against a headline of 22%.

Where these numbers come from

• Nevada Administrative Code 425.140 - the shares come straight from the regulation's own words. The same calculation the Child Support Calculator runs adds the brackets up the way NAC 425.140 writes them - each slice times its own share, added up rather than rounded a second time.
• The schedule is Nevada's, not an approximation. The 16 / 8 / 4 shares for one child come from the regulation's own words and are checked against the official text at every release, so a copying mistake in the brackets is caught before the page goes out instead of reaching a reader.
• Nevada has no cap and no low-income table in this text. Its low-income schedule is republished each year by the state court administrator's office rather than printed in the regulation, so the tool names it without printing a number; the guide does the same.

What this guide does not cover

This page explains one state's graduated shape and nothing else. It does not compare Nevada with a percentage state or a dollar-schedule state, though the Child Support Calculator offers all three; it does not model how the court treats other dependents, which in Nevada goes through a discretionary adjustment factor rather than a mechanical credit; and it says nothing about how a court applies a deviation or a shared-custody split. The only numbers it asserts are the bracket arithmetic, which any reader can reproduce from NAC 425.140.

Run your own income through the Child Support Calculator, or see what the same income leaves after tax in the Paycheck Calculator.

An estimate of a statutory guideline only - not legal, tax or financial advice. Read the full disclaimer.