Babysitting & Sports

[Berner_Faith]

Not sure if this will be helpful to anyone, but thought I would post it anyways...

We have spoke to our lawyer regarding this, as well the stbx lawyer and her have agreed that this is the way it should go...others may find this useful to have this in their SA or what not...

Babysitting costs are only considered Section 7 when

(a) child care expenses incurred as a result of the custodial parent's employment, illness, disability or education or training for employment;

However, one must take into account and Child Care Tax benefits they receive before asking the other parent to contribute to this cost. In my bfs case, his ex must take $100 off the top before requesting his portion.

Also, when it comes to extracurricular sports activities, a lot of activities fall under the "prescribed programs" which allows parents to receive up to $500 back for sporting activities. It has been worked into the agreement that my bf (NCP) will not have to contribute to sporting activities that fall under the prescribed program until they exceed $500. http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/fitness/

It was talked about both parent's splitting the costs and then at tax time, he would receive some of the benefits back, however, he was not willing to do that, as his ex's biggest issue is money and trying to get it out of her would be like pulling teeth. Given her income, she was able to cover the costs of the baseball and swimming so she could receive the benefits.

Maybe something worth looking in to for others...

[hadenough]

Thanks for the CRA link. Its definitely useful to parents like me. Ex would sooner see my son not involved in an activity, than help to cover the costs of it. Section 7 expenses were not part of our order. He's ordered to pay 1300/mo (that's cs/ss and arrears accumulated over 3 yrs) and he's paying betwn 300 and 700 per month. So now he has "new arrears that are over 3g). I do not yet have a case/file # registered w/fro. But I'm filling out the registration so at some point, they will take over. Flaws or not - they are my only hope of getting him to do what the Court has ordered. I will definitely be usng line 365 on my tax filing. Oh and just to give you an example - he said to our son - "I'm not contributing to your "xyz" activity - your mom is already getting enough money from me. She can pay for it". And his wife has said the same; to my son. "Get your mom to pay for it" - that was in response to him saying he needed/wanted new wheels for his skateboard.

[Berner_Faith]

I hope FRO steps up and helps you soon...my BF has never been late on paying his CS, he actually gives her post-dated cheques, the last bunch went from Jan 1 to July 15 (at which point CS is reassessed) and yet she always says it isn't enough...a lot of the Section 7 expenses she wants paid for, do not qualify as S7 or extraordinary, currently going through the lawyers for that.

We have never told the kids to "get mom to pay for it" nor would we...if it came down to them not playing because she refuses to pay, we would bite it and pay it... but when you look at her financial statement, she makes more than him and I put together, and her monthly debts/payments are almost half of what ours are... yet for some reason she is so hard off...or so she likes to tell the kids...

With this tax break for both babysitting and sport activities, she can't complain about having to "pay for everything" because she gets it back, well I guess she can complain, but it falls onto deaf ears.

It's sad when the children suffer because the other parents think they pay too much... like new wheels for a skateboard? We would do it just to see the smile on their face.

I think part of his exs problem is that we don't often tell the kids no, however they are also not handed things... if they want to purchase a new toy or what not, they do chores... often it is as simple as cleaning their room/making their bed and sometimes they decide they want to help cooking dinner or doing laundry. They get gold stars for every task they complete, each star is worth $1, so often in a weekend they accumulate $5 (making bed, cleaning room, sweeping, dishes, laundry, ect) and they decide how they want to spend it. Right now S6 has decided he wants to save his stars and save up to buy a Wii game... ex doesn't like that the kids get toys and such when they are with us...we feel it teaches them that in order to get what they want, they must put some effort in and work for it...needless to say, we often have to re-sweep the floors or redo some dishes, but those kids give it their best and have a great time doing it!