There are two types of child support:
Base child support (section 3)
Special and extraordinary expenses (section 7).
Base Child Support (Section 3)
This is the most common form of child support. This is the monthly amount that one parent is required to pay to the other. The purpose of this type of monthly child support (base or section 3) is to contribute towards the cost of housing, food, and daily expenses for the children.
There are two types of parenting schedules: primary and shared parenting. These schedules change the calculation for child support.
Primary parenting means one parent has the children for 60% or more of the time. In primary parenting, the parent who doesn’t have the children pays the other parent a monthly amount. This monthly amount is based on their income, province, and number of children. See additional resources below for the Federal Child Support Calculator.
Situations that get more complicated and you may want to consult a lawyer are when the paying parent has income from multiple sources, self-employment, corporations, investments, or other non-employment sources.
Shared parenting means that each parent has the children for 40-60% of the time (basically as close to 50/50 as possible, with some allowances for fluctuation).
You apply the same calculation as primary parenting, but you have to do the calculation for each parent’s income. You will take Parent A’s income, province, and number of children, to determine what they would pay in primary parenting. You do the same for Parent B. After you get these two monthly amounts, you can subtract the two. The higher income earner will pay the lower income earner. The purpose behind this is to ensure that the child has a similar standard of living between the households (so they aren’t going between two different households where one has better resources than the other). This is what is called the “off-set” method. This is the most common solution for calculating child support in shared parenting, but this is not the only way that the Courts will calculate support for situations with shared parenting. These situations can get complicated, and involve sharing of budgets to ensure that the households have that similar standard of living.
Special and extraordinary expenses (Section 7)
This part of child support is related to actual costs incurred that go above the day-to-day expenses for the children. Unlike base child support (section 3), Section 7 expenses are actual expenses incurred.
Standard section 7 expenses include:
Extracurricular activities, such as sports, dance, school activities/fees
Medical/dental expenses above what is covered by your benefits
Daycare/childcare when required to for work/education
Post-secondary (university/college) expenses (this can get a little more complicated
Primary parenting and shared parenting do not matter for section 7 expenses. You need each of your incomes (which is why even the parent receiving monthly child support must provide their financial disclosure). The way that section 7 expenses are divided is in proportion to your respective incomes. You may want to round to the nearest even number to make calculations easier for you and your co-parent.
Example #1:
Parent A earns $150,000
Parenting B earns $75,000
Parent A is responsible for ⅔ and Parent B is responsible for ⅓
Example #2:
Parent A earns $30,000
Parent B earns $50,000
Parent A is responsible for 37.5% and Parent B is responsible for 62.5%
To make it simpler for themselves, they agree to 40% and 60%
Example #3:
Parent A earns $60,000
Parent B earns $60,000
They are each responsible for 50%
Make sure to save your receipts for these types of expenses! Either parent can request the receipts. A simple solution is to make a Google Drive or folder where each of you can save the receipts. You can either reconcile or pay them as you go, or you can add them all up every month or few months and divide at that time. Some parenting apps will include features that help you keep track of these expenses too, such as Our Family Wizard.
Additional resources:
Federal Government Child Support Look-Up: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/fl-df/child-enfant/2017/look-rech.aspx
Canadian Public Legal Education Alberta (CPLEA) child support resource: https://www.cplea.ca/familyandrelationships/childsupport/
Government of Alberta resource page: https://www.alberta.ca/apply-child-support
Child Support Resolution Program: https://www.alberta.ca/child-support-resolution-program
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