How to Calculate Retroactive Child Support in BC

Child support in BC is payable from the moment of separation. So if you do not ask for it right away, you are still entitled to retroactive child support once you do ask for it….but you do not want to be too late. Let’s say you start your family law claim seeking ongoing and retroactive child support 4 months after separation. This means you are entitled to retroactive child support for 4 months and then ongoing child support every month thereafter.

How To Calculate Retroactive Child Support in BC

Retroactive child support in BC is usually calculated based on the income of the person who needs to be pay child support in that year or the year immediately prior to that year. So let’s say it is October 2014, and you are asking for BC child support from January 2014 until October 2014. Obviously the 2014 Tax Returns are not yet available because that year has not ended. So either the judge will look at the payor’s 2013 income or the last three most recent pay stubs of the payor to determine retroactive child support in BC.

In cases where the payor spouse is self-employed or has corporations, calculation of retroactive child support  gets much more completed. Corporate T2 statements need to be obtained, and you will need to figure out what the true income of the payor is for child support purposes. So if the payor reports $15,000 in his/her personal tax returns but his/her corporate income is $1,000,000, obviously child support will not be based on $15,000. Rather your lawyer or an experienced accountant will need to calculate how much of the corporate income can be attributed to the payor. That available income gets added to his/her personal income and child support will be calculated based on that.

In cases where you are asking for retroactive child support in BC but the payor’s income keeps on fluctuating, sometimes the courts will take the average income of his/her last three years of income to determine child support payable. 

When is it Too Late to Ask for Retroactive Child Support?

If you wait too long to ask for retroactive child support and all of the sudden you turn around and want it for the past 10 years, obviously that wouldn’t be too fair to the payor who assumed you were not going to ask for child support and now he/she has to pay sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars to satisfy retroactive child support.

Child support is the right of the child so the Court will often try to enforce it and award as much retroactive child support as possible. But these Courts do not want to make someone go bankrupt because you waited too long and now you are asking for it. If you have waited too long, you better have a very good excuse for waiting. These reasons can include but are not limited to:

1. Mental or physical disabilities that rendered you unable to pursue child support. Depression is a big one. It numbs you from life, let alone seeking retroactive child support. But saying you were depressed is not enough. You need to prove it by providing proper medical evidence.
2. Being able to produce emails, texts, letters asking for child support but not obtaining it, and not having enough money to pursue retroactive child support in BC through the courts. Everyone will understand this.
3. Not being able to find the payor or where he/she lives. Being able to show the judge your efforts to find them and your inability to serve them with court documents.

Now,

When exactly is it too late to ask for retroactive child support in BC? 

For Monthly or Basic Retroactive Child Support in BC:

For monthly retroactive child support, there is no hard set rule. Each case will turn on its facts. But if you are going back about 3-4 years, you should generally be safe and will likely be able to get an award for all those years.

If it is more than 4 years or so and you do not have a good enough excuse for the delay, the judge will first calculate how much is payable for all those years, and then discount the payable amount to what is reasonable and fair. The judge may also ask the payor to pay the retroactive child support award in instalments.

For Retroactive Extraordinary or S.7 Expenses

The rules is to usually go back only 3 years for calculating these expenses. Want to know the difference between monthly and extraordinary child support and how to calculate them? Click here for monthly child support and here for extraordinary child support.

Retroactive Child Support in BC is a complicated area of law because many factors come to play for a judge to determine the exact amount. It is always advisable to speak with a family lawyer to obtain your rights and obligations in this area of family law. To set up an initial consult with our top rated, award winning family lawyers, call us at 604-974-9529 or email [email protected].