Child support info for parents getting a divorce in Canada
Oct 12th, 2008 by Howard MacKinnon
Parents who are getting a divorce in Canada, or parents who already have their divorce, must adhere to the federal child maintenance guidelines when determining their financial responsibility for their children. Before the guidelines became law in 1997 it was harder to know what a judge would decide was a fair amount child support. Because of this uncertainty there were more disputes and more cases went to trial. Now, all you usually need to do is look at the guidelines to determine the right child support amount.
The core component to the guidelines is the child support tables. There is an individual table for each province, and the province used is the one where the parent who pays support ordinarily resides. For parents who live outside the country, the residence for the custodial parent is used to decide on the table. To determine the amount of child support, all you need to do is to refer to the appropriate table.
In order to figure out the appropriate amount of monthly child support you should pay, you should first choose the correct provincial table. After you have done this all you have to do is cross index the number of children you have with your individual gross annual income. This total is what the court will expect you to pay, unless you can prove that another amount is suitable. Just having both parents agree to a different amount will not be enough, you have the burden of proving this is acceptable using the rest of the guidelines. If the court does not agree with you, you will be required to pay whatever the court thinks is right.
Among the most common reasons for veering from the guideline table amount have to do with cases in which the child care set-up is much more complex than normal. Generally, one parent would be the main caregiver, while the other parent would have access visits with the kids on a fixed schedule or by some other, more flexible arrangement. The guideline table amount is most appropriate for such common situations.
However, when the children spend roughly equal time with each parent, or where some children primarily live with Mom while other children primarily live with Dad, a departure from the table amount is often warranted. In such cases it is common to figure out what each parent should pay the other according to the tables and then subtracting those amounts. One parent then pays the difference to the other.
Other situations which warrant exceptions to the tables include situations where the access parent has high access costs (extensive travel costs for example) and has a lower standard of living than the other parent.
In most instances, the number of children guaranteed child support payments encompasses all those under the age of majority as well as any full-time university students whose financial support the parents have agreed upon.
So, the guidelines, and especially the tables, have made it easier to determine the appropriate amount of child support. However, special circumstances still require a bit of fine tuning.
