Determining Income
Determining a spouse’s income is an issue that may arise when a party feels the other is not maximizing their ability to earn an income or is able to reduce their income artificially.
Under-Employed
The Court is able to order a spouse to receive or pay support based on a higher income, pursuant to Section 19(1)(a) of the Federal Child Support Guidelines. Typically, in order to suggest to the Court that your spouse could earn a higher wage, a litigant must lead evidence to support that proposition. It is important, you consider what evidence you may have to support a higher value of income.
Deduction of Concealment of Income
Some spouses may have the ability to deduct or conceal income. The Child Support Guidelines usually fixes support based on a payor’s reported income on their tax return. However, in the event a person is able to claim certain expenses against their income, that might not be a realistic quantum to use in calculating child or spousal support.
Issue: Under Employed Spouse
If a spouse is under employed, having a vocational assessment completed to provide demonstrable evidence to a Judge, that your former spouse is underemployed, would be helpful. A vocational assessment is a professional report that details the given career prospects of a person. More importantly, a vocational assessment is usually linked to a given municipality or region. As a result of the specificity of these assessments, Courts can rely upon them when deciding questions around an under-employed party.
Typically, when considering these types of imputation claims, the Court will look at the payor’s capacity to earn income in light of his or her age, education, experience, skills, health, work history, ability to be trained, other obligations and work availability.
Issue: Non-reporting Income
If a spouse is able to shelter certain income sources, then a number of tools are available to address this issue. In the event a person uses their private corporation to deduct non-business-related expenses from their income, then the Court may impute income on that basis alone. An income analysis report can assist in determining the real income that ought to be used to determine child and spousal support through an income analysis report. In fact, it may be that your former spouse has to pay for this report to demonstrate his income.