Difference between revisions of "The Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines"

This section provides an introduction to the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines. It discusses what the courts have had to say about the Advisory Guidelines and describes its formulas, reststucting the formulas' results, and the exceptions to the formulas.

(Of course, this also means that lawyers must become proficient in using the Advisory Guidelines formulas or they risk giving their clients and the courts incorrect information. The Without Child Support calculations, discussed later, are not terribly complex, but the With Child Support calculations demand a basic knowledge of the federal and provincial benefits and credits relating to children, the different deductions that apply to employment and self-employment income, received versus taxable dividends, and a few other wrinkles relating to the calculation of after-tax income. Owning the software required to do the Advisory Guidelines calculations isn't enough. Lawyers need to know how to expertly use that software, with tax and income issues in mind, and the software has to do the math and actually perform those calculations correctly. See my paper on the subject, posted on the Department of Justice's website.)

Many courts in Canada's other provinces and territories have talked about the Advisory Guidelines in much the same way as our courts have, although with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Alberta has led the charge against the Advisory Guidelines and is the province in which it least likely to be used to determine a spousal support obligation.

The Advisory Guidelines describes two basic formulas: one for when child support is not being paid (the ''Without Child Support Formula''), as might be the case if the couple have no children or if all of the children are adults and financially independent at the time of separation; and, one for when there is a legal obligation to pay child support (the ''With Child Support Formula''), whether child support is actually being paid or not. The main With Child Support Formula is designed for situations where the person receiving spousal support is also the person receiving child support. Since this isn't always the case and the amount of child support that's being paid isn't always the amount required by the Child Support Guidelines, the Advisory Guidelines has a few variations of the With Child Support Formula which will apply:

I told you it was complex. To quote Professor Thompson, "this is not a calculation you can do on the back of an envelope, you will need a computer program." This formula requires a detailed understanding of how income is determined under the Advisory Guidelines and of the various government benefits, tax deductions and tax credits that can apply to adjust net income. I've written a paper on the subject for the Department of Justice, "[http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/fcy-fea/spo-epo/calc/pdf/orrssagc.pdf Obtaining Reliable and Repeatable SSAG Calculations]," which is available to the public. Be warned: it's a bit dry.

#pay the total amount payable over the period of the award in a single lump-sum.

The Advisory Guidelines allows still other exceptions from the formulas to address situations where a child has special needs which result in the parents having greater expenses than other parents, where a relationship was very short but resulted in significant economic loss to the recipient, like the loss of a career opportunity or an expensive move, where payment of support within the ranges for amount is not sufficient to meet the recipient's needs, and where the payor's income is not taxed.

==Page resources, documents and links==