Parents who are getting a divorce in Canada, or parents who already have their divorce, must adhere to the federal child support guidelines when determining their financial responsibility for their children. Before the guidelines became law in 1997 it was harder to know what a judge would decide was a fair amount child support. Because of this uncertainty there were more disputes and more cases went to trial. Now, all you usually need to do is look at the guidelines to determine the right child maintenance amount.

The most important, and most helpful parts of the guidelines are the child support tables. Most of the time all you need to do is consult the tables to determine what the child support should be. There is a separate table for each province. The one you use is determined by the residence of the parent who will be paying support. If that parent lives outside the country, you use the provincial table based on the residence of the custodial parent.

In order to figure out the proper amount of monthly child support you should pay, you should first choose the correct provincial table. After you have done this all you have to do is cross index the number of children you have with your individual gross annual income. This total is what the court will expect you to pay, unless you can prove that another amount is suitable. Just having both parents agree to a different amount will not be enough, you have the burden of proving this is acceptable using the rest of the guidelines. If the court does not agree with you, you will be required to pay whatever the court thinks is appropriate.

Among the most common reasons for veering from the guideline table amount have to do with cases in which the child care set-up is much more complex than normal. Generally, one parent would be the main caregiver, while the other parent would have access visits with the kids on a fixed schedule or by some other, more flexible arrangement. The guideline table amount is most appropriate for such common situations.

The exception is made when there is shared parenting, the children spend approximately the same amount of time with each parent, or when the kids are split between the two parents. In these situations the most common thing to do is to figure out what each parent should pay the other according to the tables and then subtract the two figures with the parent owing the most paying the difference to the other.

Other instances that merit exceptions are cases where the parent with access has high costs (such as extensive transportation expenses) and has a standard of living which is less than that of the other parent.

Typically the number of children for whom child support is payable includes all children under the age of majority plus any children enrolled in university full time whom the parents have agreed to support.

So, the guidelines, and especially the tables, have made it easier to determine the appropriate amount of child support. However, special circumstances still require a bit of fine tuning.