Imputed Income and Ontario Family Law Cases

Marital conflicts often arise when there is an apparent disconnect between one spouse’s words and his or her actions, especially when it comes to health or money.  Your spouse may go to exercise classes at the gym multiple days per week when your children are at school and travel internationally on vacation every year, but she may complain that chronic health problems prevent her from reentering the workforce.  Likewise, your spouse might buy himself all kinds of expensive toys and treat his friends to rounds of drinks at the pub, but when you ask him to help you pay the bills, he turns his pockets inside out and claims that he is broke.  Divorce tends to highlight these kinds of problems rather than solving them, especially because you must list your income and expenses on paper, and the court will use those financial disclosures as a basis for calculating child support obligations.  If one spouse can work but doesn’t, the court has the right to base its child support calculation on how much employment income it thinks the non-working spouse can and should earn.  For help resolving disputes over imputed income in your divorce or child support case, contact a Mississauga family lawyer.

What Is Imputed Income?

Imputed income is hypothetical income that the court assigns to a party in a family law case, such as a divorce or a petition for child support.  It is the amount that the court thinks that the person would be able to earn if he or she worked as much as he or she is able.  Most divorce and child support cases do not involve imputed income; the parties simply state the income they earn, and the court accepts it at face value, whether this income comes from work, retirement savings, or public benefits.  The court only imputes income if one party convinces the court that the other party is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed, meaning that he or she can work more and earn more money but chooses not to.

There Is Always Room for Disagreement About How Much Income to Impute

Because imputed income is, at best, an educated guess, there is always room for disagreement about whether to impute income or how much to impute.  The family court cannot control the labor market; you may need to show the dozens of job applications you have submitted since your divorce, even though you have not yet found a job.  It is notoriously difficult for former couples to agree on how much income to impute to a self-employed former spouse.  You may need to show the court the accounting books of your small business to prove that your income is as variable as you say it is, and you may need to show evidence that these fluctuations in income are not due to variations in the amount of effort you put into your business venture.

Contact Zagazeta Garcia LLP About Imputed Income in Divorce

A family lawyer can help you if your ex-spouse thinks you are lazy and does not seem to understand today’s tough economic climate.  Contact Zagazeta Garcia LLP in Mississauga, Ontario to discuss your case.

Source:

(justice.gc.ca)https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-97-175/section-19.html