Under FEDERAL AND STATE LAW you may be entitled to INTEREST on the back child support the absent parent owes.

Most government child support calculators do not calculate or collect back interest on the unpaid child support that is owed to custodial parents. Even though, in most states, federal and state laws authorize you to receive this interest.

To see how much interest can be added to the back child support you are owed, fill out the fields in the Anycalculator Arrearage Calculator.

This calculator provides an estimate only of the amount of past due child support and interest that may be owed to you and your family. Do not rely upon this calculation as an exact amount. This calculator is provided to you for information purposes only. The actual amount may be higher or lower.

Anycalculator uses "an average of interest rates currently applied to past due child support in the United States." Each state has its own law providing for the interest rate that is allowed. Other factors that may affect the balance due should also be considered, such as income tax refund intercepts from the debtor.

Is John Kerry A Dead Beat Dad?

On the campaign trail the Kerry's look like a devil-may-care, happy-go-lucky brood. But like many upper crust families, the Kerry's too have a dark history; one swirling in a shadowy fog of divorce, depression, thoughts of suicide, and perhaps even deadbeat parenting.

It all started in 1971 when Julia Thorne met a young Yale grad and Navy boy named John Kerry. We have covered this early part of the story in some detail before.

What is clear is that Thorne suffered from severe depression. She was also so lonely during her life with the ambitious Kerry, she contemplated suicide more than once . But, thank God, Miz Thorne found help through the healing touch of therapy. Away from John Kerry she found balance and happiness.

But that's also where the story gets weird. You see, John Kerry became a bit of a drifter in those post-Julia Thorne days. He fancied himself a bit of a playboy and dated numerous B-list actresses .

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And, according to the Boston Globe , found himself is some financial trouble :

He took out a $473,000 loan to purchase a home in Washington, thinking his daughters would be staying with him for periods of time. It was "a huge mistake," he says, as he found himself returning to Boston most weekends to maintain his ties to his children and the state. He sold the D.C. home and bought a Boston condo but "lost his shirt" when he sold it a few years later, as he told the Globe in 1996. "He was broke," [Kerry comrade] Blum says .

At the time, Kerry had to hit the speaking circuit to collect honoraria (a practice that is now illegal for members of Congress) in order "to meet child-support payments, campaign debts, and tuition costs." He collected over $120,000 from such entities as Big Oil and Big Tobacco .

He must not have done a good job of making those child support payments, though. Shortly thereafter Julia Thorne filed a law suit against John Kerry to get more child support from him. The story was covered only briefly in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on June 10th, 1995:

Sen. John Kerry's ex-wife is suing him for higher support payments, saying his income is up substantially. The lawsuit was filed April 6, seven weeks before the Massachusetts Democrat married Teresa Heinz, the widow of Sen. John Heinz III of Pennsylvania. She controls a fortune estimated at $675 million.

Both Kerry and his former wife, Julia Thorne, said the lawsuit has nothing to do with his remarrying May 26. They divorced in 1988.

The story raised some troubling questions. Like, did John Kerry ever miss any of his child support payments during his cash-strapped, Hollywood-lovin' days? And just how little was he paying Thorne for child support? Thorne is the heiress to a $300 million Wall Street fortune, which leads us to believe it was more a matter of principle than of money. Nonetheless, we think voters are entitled to answers.

During the primary, John Kerry said, "The highest office in the land requires the highest level of openness for the American people.... As president, openness will be the hallmark of my administration, not some talking point."

We ask for nothing less before we consider whether or not to put a potential deadbeat dad in the White House.