support question

[hockeydad]

Issue: ex wants to now be compensated for the extra time after school kids go to her place until I pick up before dinner. About 10 hours a week when it is my week. We have 50 /50 split with custody.
Options - increase the child support from the spousal support so that her tax break increases and mine decreases,
-She claims more of the kids as dependants while this arrangement goes on,
As for the CTC it is my understanding with a shared custody she cannot have my portion due to CCRA rules around shared custody. If she claims all the kids to increase the tax break does that affect the CTC to me? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

[dinkyface]

Is she paying for a babysitter for those after-school hours?

If yes, then guidelines say that the amount should be split in proportion to your incomes. It doesn't matter that this is during YOUR week. The accepted reality is that both parents need to work.

Or is she coming home herself for those hours? That gets trickier - it would be cleaner if you could arrange your own sitter/daycare.

[Mess]

Neither of you should be charging the other to care for your own children. If it were me I would just say no.

If the two of you have an otherwise amicable relationship and she is struggling and losing money due to lost working hours, then by all means make it up to her, but this has nothing to do with CS calculations, which are made according to yearly income levels.

You are within 60/40 and CS should be calculated according to the set-off of your income vs her income. I'm sure you already are familiar with this. The 10 hours don't affect this at all, according to the Family Law Act, or the Child Support Guidelines. If you choose to have a private arrangement then that's up to you.

I'm presuming here that she takes the same amount of time off work, or doesn't work, during the week when she has the kids? For me, I'd go by how much she is going out of her way to do me a favour. But in general, she's spending time with her children, that should be payment enough.