"The money that one parent pays to another to support their children financially after separation or Divorce"
"Your children have a legal right to financial support from both parents, and you both have a legal responsibility to provide this support."
The information is listed on the Department of Justice website under Federal child support guidelines. This chart is where you look up the amount you have to pay in Alberta. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/fl-df/child-enfant/fcsg-lfpae/2017/pdf/aba.pdf
There is one type of custody that can actually lower the amount that you pay on this table. It's called:
- Shared Custody – This is when both parents have joint custody of the children, and both parents spend at least 40% of the time with their children. This is also known as joint physical custody.
The child support is only the beginning of the payout. There is a thing called section 7 or extraordinary expenses which covers:
- Child care
- Health care not covered by health insurance
- Extra cirricular activities i.e. hockey, soccer, dance
- Primary, secondary and post secondary educational expenses
The way the section 7 expenses is usually figured out is adding both gross annual salaries and figuring out what percentage of the total you make. For instance lets say one makes 100K the other makes 50K. Total is 150K the person making 100K is responsible for 67% of the Section 7 expenses. These could be negotiated and put into a written agreement.
Ok now that most of the facts are presented I will give my opinions with some personal examples of the different aspects of child support. In my case according to the guidelines I should be paying $1830/month we settled on $1550. I tried to claim shared custody which would have reduced my monthly payment to around $1100/month. This is what i meant in my facebook post that the government keeps me from my son so i have to pay more. Technically i'm at 43% (Take him 7pm on Tuesday when i get home from work until the following Monday evening around 7pm) , my ex claims that my plane is late 80% of the time therefore not being able to pick my son up on Tuesday night taking 12 hours off my time. It is late sometimes but not 80%. Also through creative scheduling (maybe a bit of lawyer coaching) She wanted him Sunday afternoons or looked after him Sunday night when I play hockey. I mentioned lawyer coaching because after I had a lawyer serve notice that I wanted to go for a reduction claiming shared custody I started getting texts about Sundays and that we need to be more consistent on her taking him on Sundays (unconfirmed but my opinion). I've been open since the beginning, If my son wants to go with his mom on my time I will not stop it, If the ex wants to take him on my time I will not stop it either. I can't get him a sitter unless the ex cannot or doesn't want to take him because in our contract she has first right if i can't look after him. So the system encourages her to take him during my time so it makes her more money. I pay 70% of section 7 expenses. So when October rolls around and my son wants to play hockey, that month will cost me $560 for hockey, $1550 for support and 70% of whatever hockey equipment will have to be replaced.
So what do I think about the amount I pay? I believe parenting should be 50/50 so my take on this is that the government is saying it costs $3100/month to raise my son. If this is what it really cost I'm pretty sure it would be out of reach for 80-90% of the population. Something else that bothers me about the whole process is that she doesn't have to disclose ANY information on how the money is being spent which means no accountability with the funds i am providing for my son.
I am basically supporting someone with a Masters Degree (possibly doctorate by now), who owns a business and decides what wage she wants to pay herself. Why would she give herself a raise? The system screams "you would be stupid to give yourself a raise!" None of what she does or has matters, it's just about MY gross earnings from year to year.
The mediation process is pretty much predetermined when you go in. The mediator plugs the numbers in and pretty much says here it is negotiate. $400/hour to basically get told the same thing I was told when we originally created the divorce agreement. Explaining to me that I would have to go through a hugely expensive court process to try and claim shared custody. Basically robbing my son of money to pay another lawyer instead, so i said "Fuck it"!
Every year we need to provide each other with our T4 earnings. If I get a raise she could be entitled to more if she wanted it.
These are my thoughts, I didn't make this out to be a "feel sorry for me". Hell I get to see my son more than a lot of people who are separated due to my job and how flexible the ex is. She also gave me a break on the support, I could be paying $1830/month. I don't want any ill thoughts towards the ex because she summed it up in our mediation. "I'm not asking for more than what the law says I can have." Can't blame her blame our broken government system!
Cheers
No comments:
Post a Comment