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NEW SPOUSAL SUPPORT GUIDELINES

The Federal Government has released some of the details of new spousal support guidelines.  Spousal support guidelines (similar to child support guidelines) have been used with some success in other jurisdictions.  It is hoped that the guidelines to be proposed for Canada will provide some level of certainty in the very uncertain world of spousal support that currently exists in Canada.

The Guidelines that are to be made public this Fall are only the initial draft advisory guidelines.  The Federal Government is planning on consulting with lawyers, judges and the public over the next year to fine tune the Guidelines.  Unlike the Federal Child Support Guidelines, the spousal support guidelines will not likely be mandatory or legislated.  However, the Courts may wholly embrace them in an effort to provide consistency to the area of spousal support.  The Guidelines rely on fairly easy to apply formulas, however, due to the complexities of spousal support and the various factors that can influence an award, various exceptions are being built into the Guidelines. 

There are two formulas - a general formula that applies where there are no dependent children and a second formula that applies where there are dependent children.  Like the Child Support Guidelines there will floor level of income under which there will be no spousal support payable.  Marriages will be divided into three categories:  short (under 5 years), medium (between 5 - 19 years) and long (over 20 years).

The general formula determines a range of spousal support payable by taking 1.5% to 2% of the difference in gross income between the spouses for each year of marriage up to a maximum of 50%.  For example, if a Wife is making $24,000.00 gross per year and the Husband $75,000.00 gross per year, the difference in gross income is $51,000.00.  Assuming the marriage was a medium marriage of 15 years, one then multiplies 1.5% and 2% by 15 years.  This results in a range of 22.5% to 30%.  In this case the spousal support range would be between 22.5% and 30% of the difference in gross income of 51,000.00 ($10,965.00 - $15,300.00).  Because of the length of the marriage, the support payable would be for an indefinite but not permanent period (that is it would be subject to ongoing review).

The other formula where there are children involved is a bit harder to apply.  The formula in this case uses net income of the parties as opposed to gross income under the general formula.  The formula requires that each parents "Individual Net Disposable Income" (INDI) be determined and then the INDI's are pooled and it is suggested that the recipient spouse receive between 44 ' 50 % of the INDI pool.  INDI is calculated by taking your gross income and deducting taxes, CPP and EI contributions, and ones child support payable as determined by the child support guidelines (this applies to both spouses) and any s. 7 expenses that the parties may have. 

Remember, these are just proposed guidelines and are not law nor have they been embraced by the courts.  It is difficult to say what impact the proposed guidelines will have on spousal support over the next few years.  Hopefully they will end up providing some consistency to this complex area of the law.    

By Jim Glass
September 1, 2004