In Re the Custody of: M. D. T. - - Jeremy James Tiede v. Samantha Jo Barber, County of Le Sueur

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A26-0118

In Re the Custody of: M. D. T. - -

Jeremy James Tiede, petitioner,
Respondent,

vs.

Samantha Jo Barber,
Appellant,

County of Le Sueur,
Respondent.

Filed September 14, 2026
Reversed and remanded
Ross, Judge

Le Sueur County District Court
File No. 40-FA-13-61

Steven P. Groschen, Alliance Law Firm P.A., Rochester, Minnesota (for respondent
Jeremy James Tiede)

Jacob M. Birkholz, Paul W. Brink, Birkholz & Associates, LLC, Mankato, Minnesota (for
appellant)

Brent Christian, Le Sueur County Attorney, Le Center, Minnesota (for respondent Le Sueur
County)

Considered and decided by Ross, Presiding Judge; Larson, Judge; and Beane, Judge.

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NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
ROSS, Judge
The district court granted Jeremy Tiede’s motion to modify his child-support
obligation to Samantha Barber based on Tiede’s accountant’s calculations of his self-
employment income. Because the record does not establish, and the findings are
insufficient to support the inference, that the accountant’s calculations follow the statutory
formula for calculating a parent’s self-employment income in a child-support-modification
proceeding, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.
FACTS
Jeremy Tiede and Samantha Barber are parents of a minor child born in 2009. The
district court in 2013 ordered Tiede to pay Barber child support and modified his basic
support obligation four times through May 2023, when it set it at $629 monthly.
Tiede moved the district court in 2024 to modify the 2023 order. The district court
referred the matter to a child-support magistrate, who received documentary evidence and
conducted a hearing on the motion. Tiede submitted 2023 and 2024 Schedule F tax forms
reporting the profits or losses of his family’s farming operation, Tiede Grain & Livestock
LLC. He also submitted 2023 and 2024 Schedule K-1 tax forms reporting his individual
income as a partner in the operation. The record already contained the Schedule F and
Schedule K-1 forms for 2021 and 2022. Tiede also submitted a summary of his income
prepared by his accountant. That summary represented that Tiede’s total income was
$57,106 in 2021, $83,525 in 2022, $35,304 in 2023, and $29,598 in 2024, and calculated
the monthly average as $4,281.94.

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Tiede argued that the district court should re calculate his child-support obligation
based on his average income from 2021 to 2024 because its prior calculation included
outlier years inflating his means. Tiede’s accountant testified that he prepared the tax
returns for Tiede personally and for Tiede Grain & Livestock. He explained how he
determined Tiede’s 2024 income, clarifying that the $29,598 amount “is for tax purposes
only, to calculate how much self-employment tax or social security he pays.” He also
explained that he reached that amount by combining the $36,000 guaranteed annual salary
that the farming operation pays Tiede minus his proportioned share of that year’s business
losses of $6,402. The accountant had previously testified that this income calculation does
not include any advanced tax deductions for Tiede Grain & Livestock. He explained too
that the operation’s Schedule F reports exclude the farm’s advanced deductions from its
expenses.
The magistrate ordered Tiede to file four years of the farming operation’s balance
sheets and held another evidentiary hearing. After that hearing, the magistrate issued an
order reducing Tiede’s $629 monthly child-support obligation to $442. She specifically
credited the accountant’s determination of Tiede’s income, adopting his conclusion that
Tiede’s gross monthly income was $4,282. She found that Tiede “is not underrepresenting
his income in order to pay less child support” and that his lifestyle aligns with his reported
income.
Barber removed the matter to district court for review of the magistrate’s order. The
district court affirmed. Barber appeals.

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DECISION
Barber raises three arguments challenging the district court’s order affirming the
magistrate’s order modifying child support. She argues first that the magistrate abused her
discretion by adopting the accountant’s calculations on Tiede’s income instead of
following the formula required by Minnesota Statutes section 518A.30 (2024) to calculate
a parent’s self-employment income. She argues second that the magistrate clearly erred by
overlooking Tiede’s year-to-year increases in net worth when calculating his gross income.
And she argues third that the magistrate abused her discretion by crediting the accountant’s
opinion over the balance sheets in finding the farming operation’s expenses to be ordinary.
She argues in the alternative that the order’s findings are insufficient for appellate review.
For the following reasons, we are convinced by Barber’s first and alternative arguments
and do not reach the others.
I
We agree that the magistrate abused her discretion by relying on Tiede’s
accountant’s calculation of his gross income without making the statutory-directed findings
and determining the income based on those findings. A parent’s presumptive child-support
obligation rests on his gross income . Minn. Stat. §§ 518A.29, 518A.34(b)(1) (2024). A
parent’s gross income includes his self-employment income, Minn. Stat. § 518A.29(a),
which is determined using a defined method:
[I]ncome from self-employment or operation of a
business, including joint ownership of a partnership or closely
held corporation, is defined as gross receipts minus costs of
goods sold minus ordinary and necessary expenses required for
self-employment or business operation. Specifically excluded

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from ordinary and necessary expenses are amounts allowable
by the Internal Revenue Service for the accelerated component
of depreciation expenses . . . or any other business expenses
determined by the court to be inappropriate or excessive for
determining gross income for purposes of calculating child
support.
Minn. Stat. § 518A.30. When the parent shares ownership of the business from which the
income derives, the court must apportion the income to the parent based on his ownership
share. Haefele v. Haefele, 837 N.W.2d 703, 711 n.4 (Minn. 2013). The court must follow
this formula when determining a parent’s self-employment income as incorporated into his
gross income under section 518A.29(a). Id. at 712. Tiede urges us to consider the
magistrate’s income finding deferentially, considering only whether the magistrate’s
income finding is clearly erroneous. But because our income-determination review
requires us to consider the magistrate’s application of law, an error about which constitutes
an abuse of discretion, Ludwigson v. Ludwigson, 642 N.W.2d 441, 445–46 (Minn. App.
2002), we apply an abuse-of-discretion standard of review.
And we agree with Barber that the magistrate’s reliance on the accountant’s
calculation of Tiede’s income, and the district court’s implicit adoption of that reliance,
constitutes an abuse of discretion. We can assume without deciding that a magistrate may
adopt an expert accounting witness’s calculation of a parent’s gross income based on self-
employment without expressly making the calculations separately, so long as the expert’s
calculation followed the statutory formula for any self -employment income. But our
thorough review of the record convinces us that the accountant did not calculate Tiede’s
income using section 518A.30’s formula. T he accountant testified that Tiede’s annual-

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income figures reflect “how much self-employment tax or social security [Tiede] pays,”
calculated by adding or subtracting his share of the farm’s profits or losses from a $36,000
guaranteed salary. This might reasonably capture Tiede’s actual cash flow, but it is not the
income-determination process required by law. We have found nothing in the accountant’s
testimony in any hearing even suggesting that his income calculations rested on Tiede
Grain & Livestock’s “gross receipts minus costs of goods sold minus ordinary and
necessary expenses” as apportioned to Tiede based on his ownership share. Minn. Stat.
§ 518A.30; Haefele, 837 N.W.2d at 711 n.4. The magistrate therefore improperly failed to
determine Tiede’s income using the statutory formula. And the district court therefore erred
by affirming the magistrate’s order without modification. This error constitutes an abuse
of discretion requiring a remand.
We are not persuaded otherwise by Tiede’s position as clarified at oral argument
that we can trust that the accountant followed the statutory formula because the record
contains all the information section 518A.30 requires. It is true that the record might
contain the farming operation’s gross receipts, cost of goods sold, and ordinary expenses
excluding any accelerated deductions in its four years of Schedule F forms. And it includes
Tiede’s ownership share of the farm across the same four years in its Schedule K-1 forms.
But nothing in the accountant’s testimony suggests that he applied the resulting figures in
the manner required by law in calculating Tiede’s income. On the contrary, he testified that
he determined Tiede’s income based primarily on his $36,000 guaranteed salary from the
farming operation. That the data exists in the record is not enough to demonstrate that the
accountant incorporated and applied them as required.

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II
We also agree with Barber’s alternative argument as a separate basis for reversal.
That is, even if the magistrate in fact applied the statute without saying so, a remand is
necessary because we cannot meaningfully review the decision on appeal without a clear
indication that the calculation resulted from the required calculation method. A district
court’s or magistrate’s failure to make findings on statutorily required factors in its
modification analysis requires remand for additional findings, “[e]ven if a modification
were justified.” Beede v. Law, 400 N.W.2d 831, 835 (Minn. App. 1987); see also Stich v.
Stich, 435 N.W.2d 52, 53 (Minn. 1989). The magistrate’s order here appears to rely solely
on the accountant’s calculations without any independent findings on Tiede Grain &
Livestock’s gross receipts, costs of goods sold, or ordinary and necessary expenses. And
the district court’s review of the magistrate’s decision is explained only in its conclusory
statement that it “has carefully reviewed the file and records” with out indicating that it
analyzed the result under the controlling statutory formula. Tiede highlights other findings
the magistrate included about his income, but those collateral findings do not mitigate the
lack of required findings. We reverse the child-support-modification order and direct the
district court to make the findings and calculations required by law to determine the parties’
income. We leave to the district court’s discretion whether to receive additional evidence
and conduct a new hearing before issuing a new order on the modification motion.
Reversed and remanded.