510
edits
Changes
→Sharing qualifying expenses
<blockquote>If one parent earns $48,000 per year and the other $62,000, the total of their incomes is $110,000. The first parent's income is 43.6% of the total, and the other parent's income is 56.4% of the total. The first parent would have to pay 43.6% of the cost of all qualifying expenses, and the second would have to pay the remaining 54.6% of those expenses.</blockquote>
It's important to know that the cost that is being shared is the ''net cost'' of an expense, in other words, the amount that is actually being paid after any third-party contributions have been applied to reduce the expense. Daycare costs, for example, are sometimes subsidized for lower-income earners , and the amount paid by a parent is deductible from their income. Post-secondary expenses might be reduced by bursaries and scholarships, or be partly paid by an RESP. The cost of prescriptions might be offset by contributions from a workplace health and dental insurance plan. It is the net cost of the expense, after deducting any contributions and other savings, that parents share.
It's also important to know that sometimes the income of a parent's new partner may be taken into consideration in determining a parent's "means" in sharing a qualifying expense. In the 2000 case [https://canlii.ca/t/1fm6b Baum v. Baum], the court held that the section 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 the case of [https://canlii.ca/t/53kt Scott v. Scott], another decision from 2000.