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A Guide To Child Support

In 1997, the Federal Child Support Guidelines were established.  The purpose of these Guidelines is to provide a simple and consistent method of determining how much child support is payable between separated or divorced parents.  Here is how the Guidelines work:

The first step in assessing the amount of child support is to determine the respective incomes of the parties.  The Guidelines allow for several methods of deciding what an individual's actual income is.  This is to prevent people from unfairly hiding income.  Additionally, there is a provision under the Guidelines allowing the court to set child support based on what an individual is capable of making even if they are not actually earning this much.  This is to keep people from quitting good jobs in an effort to avoid paying child support.

Once the parties' incomes have been determined, the court can assess the amount of child support payable.  There are two elements that make up child support, the first of which is the table amount.  The federal government has generated tables stating how much child support is payable based on the payor's income.  For example, a person who earns a gross income of $30,000.00 per year would pay a table amount of $449.00 per month for the support of two children.

The second element of child support is the special or extraordinary expenses, which includes childcare expenses incurred as a result of employment or education, health-related expenses, and other educational or extracurricular expenses.  Determining how much each spouse should contribute towards these elements is a little more complicated.  Generally, the rule is that each parent contributes towards these expenses in proportion to their respective incomes.  This would mean that if the non-custodial parent has a Guideline income of $30,000.00 per year and the custodial parent has a Guideline income of $20,000.00 per year, the non-custodial parent would have to pay 60% of the special or extraordinary expenses (i.e. $30,000.00 is 60% of the families global income of $50,000.00.)  This is simple enough, where the real difficulty arises is in deciding whether any given cost, such as dance classes or hockey, is an extraordinary expense.

To make the determination the courts have been using a two-step process.  First, the court must decide whether an expense is extraordinary.  Second, if the expense is extraordinary, the court must determine whether it is necessary and reasonable.  In deciding whether or not an expense is extraordinary the court will consider the parties' combined incomes, the type of expense and how much it costs, the number of activities, any special needs or talents that the children may have, and the overall cost of all the expenses.  For a very wealthy family, the cost of music lessons may not be extraordinary at all.  On the other hand music lessons may be an extraordinary expense for a family with a low combined income.

Once an expense is found to be extraordinary, the court has to decide whether the expense is necessary and reasonable, considering the parents' incomes, and the family's spending pattern prior to separation.  It may not be reasonable for a parent to enrol a child in an expensive activity when it is a financial struggle to meet the basic needs of the child, particularly when the child had never been involved with that activity prior to the separation.

The Federal Child Support Guidelines are a real help to parents trying to determine how much child support is fair.  The combination of the tables and the judicially developed tests for determining what is or is not an extraordinary expense ensure that the assessment of child support is predictable.  This reduces the amount of time that parents have to spend in court arguing about money.  Instead, the best interests of children can be the main focus.

By Craig Shworan
March 19, 2003