(780) 23-2643
info@dsfamilylaw.ca
- How income is imputed when calculating child support - January 28, 2025
- Division rules for common-law property have changed - November 2, 2022
By LegalMatters Staff • Parents have a legal responsibility to provide financial support to their children during a marriage or after a divorce or separation occurs.
In most cases, support is based on income. But in some situations, the parent paying support may be intentionally unemployed or earning less than they are capable of in order to reduce their obligations.
“In those cases, courts can impute or assign income to the under-employed parent,” says Edmonton family lawyer Mercy Afrane. “That means that their income will be higher than their tax return reflects, increasing their support obligations.
She says the Federal Child Support Guidelines sets out a non-exhaustive list of circumstances in which the court may impute income.
“They include if the spouse is intentionally under-employed or unemployed, or is not reasonably utilizing property to generate income,” says Afrane. “Courts can also act if the spouse has failed to provide income information despite a legal obligation to do so or has unreasonably deducted expenses from income.”
She says divorced parents must choose a reasonable career option that allows them to meet their support obligations, but that some leeway must be given to a parent to choose a career path that suits their lifestyle.
“Let’s say a parent has a high-paying job that requires them to travel extensively,” says Afrane. “In the interest of spending more time with their children, they could decide to take a lower-paid position that allows them to stay at home. As long as the support they were able to pay was still ‘reasonable,’ they should be exempt from income imputing.”
