Difference between revisions of "Child Support Guidelines"

The most important feature of the Guidelines is the child support tables that fix the amount of support payments according to the annual income of the person paying support and the number of children the support is to be paid for.  

It used to be that the party claiming child support, the ''recipient'', had to show the amount of support the child needed and prove that the person being asked to pay support, the ''payor'', had the means to pay that amount. Now, the amount of a child support order or an agreement for child support is based on the amounts set out in the tables attached to the Child Support Guidelines. The Guidelines have generally reduced the amount of disagreement between parents about the amount of child support, whether they're in court arguing about an order, or are negotiating a separation agreement. Most of the disagreement now tends to be about the income of the payor or child support for children over 19.

Section 7(1.1) clarifies (1)(d) and (1)(f), and says that for these subsections "extraordinary expenses" means:

An expense that may not qualify as a special expense for higher earning families may qualify as such for low income families.  For example, if guideline child support of $2,000.00 for one child is being paid, the $200.00 cost of soccer registration will probably not be considered a special expense (and will have to be paid from the $2,000 basic child support by the recipient parent) but that same $200.00 expense may be a special expense if only $500.00 per month Guideline support is being paid (and will therefore have to be shared between the parents).

#the "reasonableness of the expense in relation to the means of the spouses and those of the child and to the family's spending pattern prior to the separation," and

The court must bear in mind the special test for primary- and secondary-school education and extracurricular activities required by s. 7(1.1). Here's a helpful summary from a 2010 case from our Supreme Court, ''[http://canlii.ca/t/2dpzr Piper v. Piper]'', 2010 BCSC 1718:

When the court is asked to consider a particular expense, it should first decide whether the expense is necessary and reasonable according to the parties' financial resources. For lower income parents fewer expenses will be considered reasonable.

*Daycare will almost always be considered necessary and reasonable, if that daycare is incurred as a result of the parent’s employment, illness, disability or education or training for employment. Daycare subsidies will be taken into account when apportioning daycare expenses between the parents as will tax-deductibility.

*Dance, music and art classes, swimming, and summer day camps.

*Less expensive team sports, like soccer, baseball and basketball.

*Basic post-secondary education <span class="noglossary">costs</span>, such as tuition fees for a local college or university, student fees and textbook <span class="noglossary">costs</span>.

Under s. 7(2) of the Guidelines, expenses that qualify as special and/or extraordinary expenses are generally shared by the parties in proportion to their incomes, after deducting any contribution to those costs made by the child or the government, through things like grants or tax deductions. The idea here is to look at the total pot of money available to the child — the income of the payor plus the income of the recipient — and to figure how much each party's share of that pot is, and then pay the child's special expenses according to each parent's share.

Note that the income of a parent's new spouse or partner may sometimes be taken into consideration in determining a parent's "means" in sharing a special expense. In the 2000 Supreme Court case of ''[http://canlii.ca/t/1fm6b Baum v. Baum]'', 2000 BCSC 1835 the court held that the s. 7(1) consideration of the "means of the spouses" should be interpreted broadly as including all sources of income available to the paying parent, including the contribution of a parent's new partner. Also see a case of [http://canlii.ca/t/53kt ''Scott v. Scott''], 2000 BCSC 844.

#the last three years' of tax returns (what's required is the complete income tax and benefit return, not tax return "summaries" or "informations"),

The basic rule of thumb is that a party's income for the purposes of the Guidelines is the amount stated at line 150 of the payor's most recent tax return, although there are important exceptions that apply when a person's income is from self-employment. A party's income includes all of the party's income, not just income from a job. ''Income'' might include bonuses, rental income, profit from stock options, company dividends, Workers Compensation payments, long term or short term disability payments, personal injury awards (that relate to loss of income), pension income, government benefits, interest from an investment and so forth, as well as employment and self-employment income.

#the payor is self-employed and either receives unpaid benefits from their company (like a company car, paid meals or a free cell phone), or doesn't report the full amount of money taken from the company,

#the payor has refused to provide full and complete financial disclosure, or

#the payor has hidden or appears to have hidden some of their income, and

#the payor has quit a job in order to avoid paying child support,

#the payor has taken lower-paying work than they used to have, or is capable of holding, in order to minimize the amount of child support payable, and

#the payor has tried to reduce their income by claiming unreasonable deductions.