What's the solution...

[Duped]

There is a lot of negativity going through the forum about just how STUPID the child support guidelines are! I believe the idea is sound but the implementation sucks! What's the answer? How would you suggest the guidelines be fixed? or what would the perfect process look like?

Duped

[FL_Needs_To_Change]

This is going to cause some serious discussions,

I think there has always been a bit of a distaste for the CS guidelines, not so much the amounts but rather how they were derived and impliments. Also, their total disregard to the individual circumstances. No two cases are the same, so why are they all treated as such?

Personally I "DO" believe CS is warranted, and the amounts are not, within themselves, so bad when all the parameters for how they were arrived at are met by the CP and NCP.

If the CP has a higher standard of living, then there should be a “formula” to take this into consideration. And CS should go directly to the child or child related things. To quote the research behind the CSG, “….In cases where the custodial parent earns more than the non-custodial parent, the awards will be unjustifiably high.”

We all know the primary bases of these amounts is to "equalize" the standard of living so that the children maintain the same life style after separation as they have before.

Similarly, if the CP re-marries then that too should be taken into consideration. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should be using the table amount for the scenarios it was intended, IE when the CP has a lower income AND a lower standard of living. In all other cases a formula should be derived. I think this would eliminate a huge amount of animosity and requests for “extras”.

Also from the study,
“There is also an imbalance of power inherent when only one party is financially reporting to the other. The ability of one party to conduct economic surveillance of the other with the support of the law creates a power imbalance that may be abused.”

I feel as it stands the rules for these amounts are no longer valid in the majority of cases, but rather for the minority of the cases. And because of that they are unjust more often than not, which is completely contrary to why they were developed. I feel there should be a formula rather than table amount. Where this formula takes into consideration the expected amounts BOTH parents are expected to contribute to “raising & care” the CHILDREN.

“….Three key assumptions underlay these prototypes: that the Statistics Canada
40/30 scale represents the cost of children; that both spouses have the same income after divorce; and that the non-custodial parent has the same costs or needs as a single person.
None of these assumptions are correct. First, as has been shown …., the Statistics
Canada 40/30 scale almost certainly overestimates the cost of children. Secondly, spouses rarely have the same income after divorce. Both sexes, if not remarried, experience large declines in household income, with women faring considerably worse than men. However, remarried spouses of both sexes have increased household incomes after divorce. And thirdly, as previously discussed, non-custodial parents have costs or needs more closely approximating the custodial parent than a single person. Thus none of the assumptions of the guidelines were based on fact. Despite these problems with assumptions, the proposed guidelines estimated support amounts needed to equalize standards of living…”

[Denisem]

Fl

I agree with most of what you have said....except ...if CP remarries the new spouse's income should not be a factor as they are not the parent.

[today]

First of all child support is very important, man or women we must absolutley support our children, I do not think anyone would be able to argue that child support is not an extremlely important contribution. We all wish and want to support our children or we should , I know there are those who do no not I sure hope they are a minority. From what I gather here they most certainly are a minority. The problem arises when an equal support regime turns into a cash cow for the "women". So often men simply want to be involved with thier children's live but must "pay" the "ex" in order to gain access, and this is the reality and absolute crap but for now the reality for too many men.