Accuracy of mysupportcalculator ?

[SadAndTired]

Has anyone compared their lawyer's calculations to mysupportcalculator.ca?

I know they say there are a lot of variables to divorce mate that lawyers use but, for strictly child support and within the child support guidelines, is mysupportcalculator fairly accurate?

MySupportCalculator.ca

Thanks.

[Straittohell]

I have manually calculated it from the tables, worked with an application from my mediator, and used mysupportcalculator, and they have all yielded the same results.

At least, that's how it is for child support. The federal tables are pretty clear. The SAG guidelines for spousal or more wishy washy and highly subject to many variables.

[BitHunter]

Here is the official child support calculator:
Child Support Table Look-up
It just uses a table in the background, there is nothing really to "calculate".

For spousal support calculation anything which comes up any different value than 0 is a P.O.S. Unfortunately the "divorce mate" software is a semi-official of them. (I had a chance once to play with it, depending on what I plugged in, the lowest range it came up with was between $400-$600, the highest is between $1200-$1400 with my numbers. Quite a difference.)

[stripes]

For child support, go straight to the federal child support guidelines. (FCSG). It tells you who owes who how much - there's no ambiguity, unless you have a really unusual situation.

For spousal support, my understanding is that there is no official guideline comparable to the FCSG. It's all what one party can negotiate with the other. Things like mysupportcalculator can give you numbers to start with, but it doesn't have to be the ending point of the negotiation.

[Tayken]

FYI: mysupportcalculator.ca is provided by Divorcemate.

JP Boyd on Family Law: The Blog: DivorceMate Provides Free Advisory Guidelines Calculator

[Desperate_Dad]

mysupportcalculator.ca is a watered down version of Divorcemate which is itself a completely flawed program. However for calculating child support, it would be accurate. Of course in my view the child support guidelines upon which child support payments are based is completely flawed but that is another story entirely. Do not use mysupportcalcular.ca to calculate spousal support.

[whyme?]

unfortunately, the whole legal profession in Ontario seems to rely completely on divorcemate for SS calcs. I have just finished mediation and arbitration and it became shockingly clear that no one was willing to look past what divorcemate spits out and look at the real facts of the situation. Soooo frustrating!

Especially on length of SS - 14 year marriage equates to a "FIXED" range of 7 to 14 years regardless of any other implications. And I also learned that everybody in the legal profession ends up meeting in the middle...again regardless of the facts!

UNREAL

[Desperate_Dad]

What you have to understand is that most lawyers acquired a soft arts degree prior to their law degree which basically qualifies them to say "Will you be having fries with that?" None of them understand how to calculate true income and rely on Divorcemate which itself is comprised of a computer programmer (Mark Harris) and a bunch of lawyers all of whom have no clue what they are doing. To compound the problem, most lawyers enter in the information incorrectly.

So to summarize...Wrong income entered in the wrong place, ignoring legitimate deductions and in a program that has tons of flaws with ranges that are too high. Does anyone realize that the "low" amount for the range means the spousal support payor is only getting 47% of the income compared to the recipient that is getting 53%? And that is the low range.
And they wonder why the payor gets mad?

If some lawyer flips a Divorcemate calculation to you that you disagree with, you tell the Judge that Divorcemate is not law and you want to have a prrofessional accountant look at it to get an accurate figure.

[Desperate_Dad]

I'll actually add one more thing. Some of my prior posts deal with Divorcemate where I document the fraud that they perpetrate on the Canadian Public. Just look up my prior posts if you are interested.

[whyme?]

yeah I feel like I have been defrauded by the whole system. But the kicker being both divorcemate calculations and mediator/my lawyer willing to look at the real facts related to my situation. It was clear I was fighting a losing battle and needed to just cut my losses financially...and try not to think of the 100% undeserved windfall my ex just received.