It is vitally important for parents to provide complete and up-to-date financial information when calculating child support. Sometimes only the paying parent is required to provide disclosure, but sometimes both parents are. This at a minimum includes:

• Income tax returns for each of the last 3 years
• Notices of assessment and reassessment from the last 3 years

It may also include:

• Most recent statement of earnings, pay slip, or a letter from their employer about their salary or wage
• Financial statements if the parent is self-employed or controls a corporation
• Information about income received from employment insurance, worker compensation, disability or social assistance. 

If a parent is unwilling or unable to give an accurate account of their income you may need to go to court and ask a judge to “impute their income”. This means the judge will assume the parent makes a certain amount of money and base child support off of that assumed amount. This could happen when a parent:

• Is deliberately under or unemployed
• Fails to provide up to date information
• Gets income from other sources such as dividends or a trust, and other situations. 

In some cases, parents have been fined for deliberately hiding financial information. 

It’s an ongoing obligation

It is important to keep each other informed of any changes in your income so that you can adjust child support payments. 

If your income increases and you do not increase your child support payments, you may be made to make up the difference later on in a court order. 

If your income goes down, you can ask or seek an order to reduce your payments and avoid owing money you cannot afford to pay.