SNAKES AND LADDERS: SHARED CUSTODY, CHILD SUPPORT, AND THE ELIGIBLE DEPENDENT TAX CREDIT (Line 30400)

Authored by Carolyn L. Seitz, KC

The rules set out in the Income Tax Act are convoluted. The rules related to child support where parties share custody and residency of children can also be complex. Combining the two of them frequently results in a headache.

Section 9 of the Child Support Guidelines governs child support where a child lives with each parent more than 40% of the child’s time. Under section 9(a), the parties are to review what each of them would have paid the other under section 3 of the Guidelines if that child lived primarily with the other parent. As a starting point, they subtract the smaller payment from the larger, with the net amount to be paid. This is generally referred to as a “set-off” and is easy to determine and calculate. Subsections (b) and (c) then complicate matters: the parents are also to take into account “the increased costs of shared parenting time arrangements” and “the conditions, means, needs and other circumstances of each spouse and of any child for whom support is sought.”

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