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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 court 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 consult the guidelines to determine the appropriate child support amount.
The most important, and most helpful parts of the guidelines are the child support tables. Most of the time all you need to do is consult the tables to determine what the child support should be. There is a separate table for each province. The one you use is determined by the ordinary residence of the parent who will be paying support. If that parent lives outside the country, you use the provincial table based on the residence of the custodial parent.
Once you have chosen the right provincial table it is just a simple process of cross indexing the number of children with the gross annual income of the parent paying support. This will show you exactly what the monthly child support amount should be. This will be the amount the court will expect you to agree upon unless you can show why a different amount would be more appropriate. If you want to use a different amount you have to explain why, using the rest of the guidelines as a guide. Just because both parents agree to another amount will not be considered an adequate explanation. If the court is not satisfied that your amount is supported by the guidelines, the court will impose an amount it believes is more appropriate.
Some of the recurring justifications for deviating from the guideline table amount include instances with an unusually more complex child care arrangement. For the most part, one parent is the primary caretaker, while the other one gets to visit the children based on a fixed schedule or based on an arrangement which fluctuates from time to time. In cases like these, it is appropriate to use the guideline table amount.
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.
