Some recent experience I wish to share.
stbx & I went through mediation. I raised the idea of child support payments not following straight offset, and instead be proportional to access. Thanks Tayken for your help in pointing to prior case law: http://canlii.ca/t/29rsd
After describing the approach on paper, the mediator agreed this would be a more fair (mathematically sound) approach to child support payments. They also said nobody had ever described this scenario to them in their years of family law. They used the updated child support value in DivorceMate, which calculated a new amount for spousal support.
I was caught off-guard by the number that came out, though in retrospect I should have expected it. The goal the mediator was looking to meet is 50/50 net disposable income. Child support is non-taxable, but spousal support is. So in order to meet the goal of 50/50 NDI, for every dollar removed from child support, more than a dollar will be added to spousal. This usually will be a net advantage in regards to taxes (total increase in NDI), if you can afford the payments until then.
The above may not be applicable to your situation, but the good news here, to me, is that when explained, proportional offset did make sense to a family law professional. Though they did caution that at divorce time, the judge is going to expect straight offset, and will need a good description for any deviation.
Hope this helps!
stbx & I went through mediation. I raised the idea of child support payments not following straight offset, and instead be proportional to access. Thanks Tayken for your help in pointing to prior case law: http://canlii.ca/t/29rsd
After describing the approach on paper, the mediator agreed this would be a more fair (mathematically sound) approach to child support payments. They also said nobody had ever described this scenario to them in their years of family law. They used the updated child support value in DivorceMate, which calculated a new amount for spousal support.
I was caught off-guard by the number that came out, though in retrospect I should have expected it. The goal the mediator was looking to meet is 50/50 net disposable income. Child support is non-taxable, but spousal support is. So in order to meet the goal of 50/50 NDI, for every dollar removed from child support, more than a dollar will be added to spousal. This usually will be a net advantage in regards to taxes (total increase in NDI), if you can afford the payments until then.
The above may not be applicable to your situation, but the good news here, to me, is that when explained, proportional offset did make sense to a family law professional. Though they did caution that at divorce time, the judge is going to expect straight offset, and will need a good description for any deviation.
Hope this helps!
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