Did you know that: (1) our child support guidelines rely on a formula to calculate all the levels of child support? (2) that the child support formula assumes that the paying parent has NO access, when the access parent's actual access can be up to 40%? (3) that the assumption of no access result in more than doubling all the levels of child support for the average access parent? (4) that the assumption was labelled as "legislative fiction” by a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada on November 10, 2005? (5) that even a paying parent with an access of 40% or more is treated unfairly by our child support guidelines?
If you want to know more about these and other problems with our child support guidelines, read "Child Support Guidelines, 1997 to 2007, First decade of fiction"
Link to free copy of on line book
Showing posts with label Child Support. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Child Support. Show all posts
Friday, June 12, 2009
Report shows that Canada's child support guidelines fueling court conflict, unfairness and throwing child support payers into poverty while support
(April 12, 2009) A new report just released by the Family Justice Review Committee shows the financial figures behind why so many non custodial parents are being forced into poverty and made into deadbeat parents. All readers are urged to spread copies of this report around to members of the public so that the public will begin to understand that in many cases, deadbeat parents are created by Canada's oppressive and unconstitutional child support guidelines. Non custodial parents are in many cases, thrown into poverty and simply are unable to pay because the guidelines are grossly unfair and one sided. The figures show that in Canada, there is no equality, fairness or justice when it comes to the way that child support payers are treated. Australia has adopted a much more fair child support formula while Canada lags behind the rest of the world and allows its children and families to be persecuted and destroyed under the guise of "child support".
Link to report in pdf format only
Source: http://www.canadacourtwatch.com/
Link to report in pdf format only
Source: http://www.canadacourtwatch.com/
Friday, May 29, 2009
Divorce is ugly business.
A trailer for the movie; Support? which explores the fundamental flaws in America's Family Courts covering the Divorce and Child Support System. As told through over 38 interviews with both custodial and non-custodial parents...
Child Support; Best Interest for who? Child, Parent or State
From a meeting with Utah State Senator Greg Bell. Child support is often thought of money spent in the child's best interest. However, the unspoken truth is that child support is unaccounted funds given to the custodial parent and further used in a competition for federal bonus funds.
In the first half of the video, concerned citizen, Tony Curtis, questions whose interest is served by child support. Senator Bells attests that millions of dollars are tied to child support - the interest of the state. In the second half of the video a grown child of divorce testifies as to the need for more accountability.
One of the most discussed issues at the meeting was 50/50 equal parenting legislation. Senator Bell explained to attendees the difficulties with jumping immediately to a 50/50 parenting presumption from the legislative and practical points of view and was open to looking further into 50/50 equal parenting based on research and studies.
Transcript:
Audience member: The best interests of the child is what I want to talk about. When we discuss this issue of 50/50 custody what often comes up is the economic situation for mothers. That's not talking about the best interests of the child then. You've switched from the best interests of the child now to the best interests of one parent. And what I would like to say about this is we really need to separate those two issues, because if it's truly in the best interests of the child having involvement from both parents, then why are we messing with that because we're concerned about economics for one parent?
Senator Bell: Well, you make a great point and if you and I were designing a new world that's where we would start. But we're not. We're stuck with a system and I'm just saying that there's no way you're going to lop off hundreds of millions of child support overnight or for even a three year ammortization. You know what I'm saying. It's a huge economic and social shift and you know whether you and I and all the angels agree or not we're not going to get the governor and 103 other people you know to move there overnight so ah you're right. The interests of the child is not necesarily found with the child support cause the child support may or may not go to the best interest of the children.
Another audience member: Senator Bell, I am one of those children. My parents divorced in Montana. And my dad currently lives here in Utah. It was a very unfair situation and I'd like to see something on the legislature that puts parents in responsibility to that child support. I'd like to see a program like Horizontee cards for welfare that maybe we keep track of that child support so that we know it's going for the children cause it's not parental support, it's child support. And my mom took the child support and didn't use it to support me. My mom never gave me a college fund. She never made sure I had the tools to be a successful adult. I escaped from my mother from a very abusive situation at the age of 17. My dad had to continue paying child support till I was 19. And I didn't live with my mom and I had no support from her. I would like to see something on the legislature that changes to where we do keep track of child support. My dad is currently $140,000... of what it goes towards, of what it's spent on. Because the price of raising a child is not dependent on a percentage of a wage, it is a price, but shouldn't we keep track of where that money goes so it's not used for mommy when the children are gone, for her and the new husband to go away to Hawaii. That's not a very useful use of that child support... and there's parents trading there child support for drugs and all sorts of ridiculous things.
Just how much money is this hundreds of millions in child support?? According to the website of the Utah Office of Recovery Services, over $195.9 million was collected in fiscal year 2006. Of this amount over $23.4 million was distributed to the Utah Department of Health (as apposed to being distributed to recipient parents), and at least $6.3 million made it directly into the state's general fund (as apposed to being distributed to recipient parents
Florida man owes $10,000 for child who's not his
FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (CNN) -- Francisco Rodriguez owes more than $10,000 in back child support payments in a paternity case involving a 15-year-old girl who, according to DNA results and the girl's mother, is not his daughter.
Francisco Rodriguez is fighting for leniency in his paternity case. "It's not right. I'm not the father, " he said.
Rodriguez, who is married with two daughters and a son from his wife's previous marriage, is fighting for leniency. "It's not right. I'm not the father, " he said at a recent court hearing.
He says he knew nothing about the other girl until paperwork showed up about four years ago saying he was the father.
He now has DNA results that show the 15-year-old girl wasn't fathered by him. He even has an affidavit from the girl's mother -- a former girlfriend from 1990 -- saying he's "not the father" and asking that Rodriguez no longer be required to pay child support.
Yet the state of Florida is continuing to push him to pay $305 a month to support the girl, as well as the more than $10,000 already owed. He spent a night in jail because of his delinquent payments.
Why is he in such a bind?
He missed the deadline to legally contest paternity. That's because, he says, the paperwork didn't reach him until after the deadline had passed. Watch Rodriguez plead in court for a break »
"It's like you're drowning every day," says Rodriguez, a massage therapist.
Rodriguez's case highlights the legal dilemma states face over how to handle paternity cases. More than a third of children born in the United States are born to unmarried parents, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
But paternity laws vary from state to state, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), a nonprofit organization that works to improve the lives of low-income families.
Some states have detailed laws to challenge paternity within deadlines, while others offer little guidance. In most cases, men have 60 days to challenge paternity, according to CLASP.
After that, it can be "challenged only on the basis of fraud, duress or material mistake of fact," CLASP said last year in an update to a report on paternity law.
"There are no perfect answers," says Susan Paikin of the Center for Support of Families in Delaware. "Deadlines are imposed so that when families are broken -- the legal process is handled quickly."
She says state legislatures and courts struggle with paternity cases, trying to strike the proper balance between children's rights and adults' rights, always keeping in mind any potential harm to the child.
"This is a struggle. It's not something easy for courts or legislatures," she says.
Paikin says it's especially tricky in cases where a father has raised a child thinking it was his, only to learn years later the child had a different father.
"Most men who have a relationship with their child don't think of their child in terms of DNA," she said. "The real issue in most of these cases is anger and money."
Tampa Police officer Michael Anderson understands that sentiment. He paid child support for more than 12 years -- a total outlay he says amounted to more than $80,000. But a DNA test after he and his wife divorced showed the daughter he thought was his was somebody else's.
He then separated himself and his feelings from the child.
"I stopped having a relationship with the girl right from the beginning, when I found out," he said. "It was hard, but I had to do it."
A Tampa court earlier this year disestablished him as father and relieved him of his future child support payments. But by law, he is unable to get back the $80,000 he already paid.
Carnell Smith, who founded a group called U.S. Citizens Against Paternity Fraud, wants mandatory DNA tests when a child is born to avoid legal wrangling and anguish.
"Unfortunately, today it's not a crime for someone to lie about which man is the father," Smith said. "The mother doesn't have to return the money and rarely, if ever, is she prosecuted for perjury, for fraud."
Rodriguez's odyssey began in 1990, when he says at age 16 he had a four- to five-month relationship with a woman CNN is not identifying. He says when the relationship ended, he did not hear from her again until child support papers arrived at his home in 2003.
"My wife and I both had a confused look, and we're wondering, 'Where is the DNA test?' " he says.
But it was long past Florida's deadline to contest paternity. A court had already named him the father three years before when he did not respond to notices to appear, notices he says he never received because he had moved a lot.
He was now on the hook for monthly child support, as well as $10,623 in back child support.
He eventually paid for DNA testing. The test showed he was not the father.
A judge has now ordered a court-sanctioned DNA test for Rodriguez and the 15-year-old girl. Rodriguez has taken that test; the girl and her mother did not show up for their appointment to submit to DNA testing and it's unclear if the girl has complied.
CNN has repeatedly tried to contact the mother, but has been unable to reach her.
Rodriguez and his family continue to wait for answers.
"It's hard when your daughter needs sneakers and you have to pay $305 or your husband goes to jail," said Rodriguez's wife, Michele. "It's just unfair."
CNN's Rich Phillips contributed to this report.
Watch video: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/11/paternity.cases/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
Francisco Rodriguez is fighting for leniency in his paternity case. "It's not right. I'm not the father, " he said.
Rodriguez, who is married with two daughters and a son from his wife's previous marriage, is fighting for leniency. "It's not right. I'm not the father, " he said at a recent court hearing.
He says he knew nothing about the other girl until paperwork showed up about four years ago saying he was the father.
He now has DNA results that show the 15-year-old girl wasn't fathered by him. He even has an affidavit from the girl's mother -- a former girlfriend from 1990 -- saying he's "not the father" and asking that Rodriguez no longer be required to pay child support.
Yet the state of Florida is continuing to push him to pay $305 a month to support the girl, as well as the more than $10,000 already owed. He spent a night in jail because of his delinquent payments.
Why is he in such a bind?
He missed the deadline to legally contest paternity. That's because, he says, the paperwork didn't reach him until after the deadline had passed. Watch Rodriguez plead in court for a break »
"It's like you're drowning every day," says Rodriguez, a massage therapist.
Rodriguez's case highlights the legal dilemma states face over how to handle paternity cases. More than a third of children born in the United States are born to unmarried parents, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
But paternity laws vary from state to state, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), a nonprofit organization that works to improve the lives of low-income families.
Some states have detailed laws to challenge paternity within deadlines, while others offer little guidance. In most cases, men have 60 days to challenge paternity, according to CLASP.
After that, it can be "challenged only on the basis of fraud, duress or material mistake of fact," CLASP said last year in an update to a report on paternity law.
"There are no perfect answers," says Susan Paikin of the Center for Support of Families in Delaware. "Deadlines are imposed so that when families are broken -- the legal process is handled quickly."
She says state legislatures and courts struggle with paternity cases, trying to strike the proper balance between children's rights and adults' rights, always keeping in mind any potential harm to the child.
"This is a struggle. It's not something easy for courts or legislatures," she says.
Paikin says it's especially tricky in cases where a father has raised a child thinking it was his, only to learn years later the child had a different father.
"Most men who have a relationship with their child don't think of their child in terms of DNA," she said. "The real issue in most of these cases is anger and money."
Tampa Police officer Michael Anderson understands that sentiment. He paid child support for more than 12 years -- a total outlay he says amounted to more than $80,000. But a DNA test after he and his wife divorced showed the daughter he thought was his was somebody else's.
He then separated himself and his feelings from the child.
"I stopped having a relationship with the girl right from the beginning, when I found out," he said. "It was hard, but I had to do it."
A Tampa court earlier this year disestablished him as father and relieved him of his future child support payments. But by law, he is unable to get back the $80,000 he already paid.
Carnell Smith, who founded a group called U.S. Citizens Against Paternity Fraud, wants mandatory DNA tests when a child is born to avoid legal wrangling and anguish.
"Unfortunately, today it's not a crime for someone to lie about which man is the father," Smith said. "The mother doesn't have to return the money and rarely, if ever, is she prosecuted for perjury, for fraud."
Rodriguez's odyssey began in 1990, when he says at age 16 he had a four- to five-month relationship with a woman CNN is not identifying. He says when the relationship ended, he did not hear from her again until child support papers arrived at his home in 2003.
"My wife and I both had a confused look, and we're wondering, 'Where is the DNA test?' " he says.
But it was long past Florida's deadline to contest paternity. A court had already named him the father three years before when he did not respond to notices to appear, notices he says he never received because he had moved a lot.
He was now on the hook for monthly child support, as well as $10,623 in back child support.
He eventually paid for DNA testing. The test showed he was not the father.
A judge has now ordered a court-sanctioned DNA test for Rodriguez and the 15-year-old girl. Rodriguez has taken that test; the girl and her mother did not show up for their appointment to submit to DNA testing and it's unclear if the girl has complied.
CNN has repeatedly tried to contact the mother, but has been unable to reach her.
Rodriguez and his family continue to wait for answers.
"It's hard when your daughter needs sneakers and you have to pay $305 or your husband goes to jail," said Rodriguez's wife, Michele. "It's just unfair."
CNN's Rich Phillips contributed to this report.
Watch video: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/11/paternity.cases/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
Monday, May 25, 2009
The formula from hell: A divorced dad uncovers a deliberate policy to drive separated parents farther apart
The Report, May 13, 2002, p. 52
By CANDIS MCLEAN
This says it all!" exulted Toronto geologist Alar Soever at last month's discovery of a 31-page document obtained under a Freedom of Information request. "It is a detailed financial analysis of the Federal Child Support Guidelines showing how impoverished the paying parent would be and the inherent inequities in the model."
Titled "Detailing the Components of the Canadian Child Support Formula, 1997 Edition," labelled draft #6 and dated November 15, 1996, what makes it so different from the guidelines which, pared down to nine pages, were eventually made public, is its level of detail, as well as an appendix of case examples. "This is the comprehensive explanation of the guidelines that Parliament and the Canadian public deserved at the time they were debating and passing this legislation in the fall of 1996," declares Mr. Soever (dadalar@aol.com).
Spokesmen for the Justice Department, however, deny that the document was suppressed, saying it was merely delayed while being fine-tuned for the public. 'We struggled mightily with the level of technicality and decided to cut it down to make it short and succinct. If we gave examples, it was too long," attests senior researcher Jim Sturrock, one of the developers of the guidelines. Senior council Lise Lafreniere Henrie adds that MPs had briefing notes while making their decision on the guidelines, but they were not public documents. "It was advice to the ministers, so it was confidential. However, we published a set of tables and in January 1995 we published an overview illustrated in a more simplistic way, so information was out there."
In the newly discovered draft, a theoretical case is given in which both parents live in Newfoundland, the two children live full-time with the custodial parent and each parent earns $25,000. Utilizing the formula, the document then indicates that the "after-tax, after [child-support] award" income for the custodial parent is $27,369, while the non-custodial parent's income is slashed to almost one-half that, at $14,489. Of the total expenditures on children, $4,435 is paid by the non-custodial parent, while only $2,825 is paid by the custodial parent. "This is without even considering any direct expenditures made by the non-custodial parent during his or her time with the children," points out Mr. Soever.
When the non-custodial parent earns $1,000 more (i.e., $26,000), while the income of the custodial parent remains unchanged at $25,000, the child-support award increases by $170 per year. The actual income of both parents rise: the custodial parent's to $27,539, the non-custodial parent's to $14,983, but while the non-custodial parent now pays $170 more of the children's expenses than before (at $4,605), the custodial parent actually pays $100 less than before. Of the $170 increase in child support, only $70 goes to "direct expenditures on the children," while $100 is directed to the "personal (for parent) disposable income."
So why is an apparent "spousal support" built into the child support in the new formula? Justice officials say it is simply mislabelled and should have been called "household income." Mr. Soever says. The fact that the larger proportion of the child-support award is going to the receiving parent is perhaps inevitable, but very few people grasp the concept, and that's because it was never made clear when it was passed that the formula was a simple household standard-of-living equalization formula. Even two years after the guidelines were passed, the Supreme Court of Canada still didn't seem to grasp it," he says, pointing to the April 27, 1999, judgment in Francis v. Baker.
"However, even though the guidelines have their own stated objectives, they have not displaced the .Divorce Act, which clearly dictates that maintenance of the children, rather than household equalization or spousal support, is the objective of child-support payments." According to Mr. Soever, "Either the justices didn't know the very basis of the guidelines was a household-equalization formula, or they have ruled that the manner in which the guidelines are constructed contravenes the Divorce Act."
Contends Mr. Soever, "In these case examples, the standard of living of the paying parent is already much lower than that of the receiver, despite using the guidelines' assumption that the household of the paying parent has only a single person and no direct expenditures on the children. In reality, one must remember that the children might be living with the paying parent up to 40% of the time and in that case, his or her direct expenditures on the children would only be marginally less than those of the receiving parent. Clearly being left with a disposable income half that of the receiving parent, the paying parent would not be in a position to provide a comparable standard of living for the children while they are with him.
"This November 1996 draft report with its case examples exposes the deficiencies in the child-support formula. Had it been published in the fall of 1996, as promised earlier, I do not believe the guidelines would have made it through Parliament in their present form. This, I believe, explains why the formula was not published in the fall of 1996.
"In all subsequent drafts, the detailed financial analysis and all the examples which exposed the true financial hardship inflicted by the Guidelines were deleted, so unless you do the detailed analysis yourself—which takes some time and knowledge—you cannot appreciate how it affects families and children. It took the Justice Department 18 months to remove the examples and financial analysis and edit this 31-page draft document down to nine pages which say far less about the nature of the Guidelines than the original. The fact that it has now been revealed that there was a comprehensive draft ready in November 1996 raises serious questions as to why the release of this document was delayed in an open and democratic society."
By CANDIS MCLEAN
This says it all!" exulted Toronto geologist Alar Soever at last month's discovery of a 31-page document obtained under a Freedom of Information request. "It is a detailed financial analysis of the Federal Child Support Guidelines showing how impoverished the paying parent would be and the inherent inequities in the model."
Titled "Detailing the Components of the Canadian Child Support Formula, 1997 Edition," labelled draft #6 and dated November 15, 1996, what makes it so different from the guidelines which, pared down to nine pages, were eventually made public, is its level of detail, as well as an appendix of case examples. "This is the comprehensive explanation of the guidelines that Parliament and the Canadian public deserved at the time they were debating and passing this legislation in the fall of 1996," declares Mr. Soever (dadalar@aol.com).
Spokesmen for the Justice Department, however, deny that the document was suppressed, saying it was merely delayed while being fine-tuned for the public. 'We struggled mightily with the level of technicality and decided to cut it down to make it short and succinct. If we gave examples, it was too long," attests senior researcher Jim Sturrock, one of the developers of the guidelines. Senior council Lise Lafreniere Henrie adds that MPs had briefing notes while making their decision on the guidelines, but they were not public documents. "It was advice to the ministers, so it was confidential. However, we published a set of tables and in January 1995 we published an overview illustrated in a more simplistic way, so information was out there."
In the newly discovered draft, a theoretical case is given in which both parents live in Newfoundland, the two children live full-time with the custodial parent and each parent earns $25,000. Utilizing the formula, the document then indicates that the "after-tax, after [child-support] award" income for the custodial parent is $27,369, while the non-custodial parent's income is slashed to almost one-half that, at $14,489. Of the total expenditures on children, $4,435 is paid by the non-custodial parent, while only $2,825 is paid by the custodial parent. "This is without even considering any direct expenditures made by the non-custodial parent during his or her time with the children," points out Mr. Soever.
When the non-custodial parent earns $1,000 more (i.e., $26,000), while the income of the custodial parent remains unchanged at $25,000, the child-support award increases by $170 per year. The actual income of both parents rise: the custodial parent's to $27,539, the non-custodial parent's to $14,983, but while the non-custodial parent now pays $170 more of the children's expenses than before (at $4,605), the custodial parent actually pays $100 less than before. Of the $170 increase in child support, only $70 goes to "direct expenditures on the children," while $100 is directed to the "personal (for parent) disposable income."
So why is an apparent "spousal support" built into the child support in the new formula? Justice officials say it is simply mislabelled and should have been called "household income." Mr. Soever says. The fact that the larger proportion of the child-support award is going to the receiving parent is perhaps inevitable, but very few people grasp the concept, and that's because it was never made clear when it was passed that the formula was a simple household standard-of-living equalization formula. Even two years after the guidelines were passed, the Supreme Court of Canada still didn't seem to grasp it," he says, pointing to the April 27, 1999, judgment in Francis v. Baker.
"However, even though the guidelines have their own stated objectives, they have not displaced the .Divorce Act, which clearly dictates that maintenance of the children, rather than household equalization or spousal support, is the objective of child-support payments." According to Mr. Soever, "Either the justices didn't know the very basis of the guidelines was a household-equalization formula, or they have ruled that the manner in which the guidelines are constructed contravenes the Divorce Act."
Contends Mr. Soever, "In these case examples, the standard of living of the paying parent is already much lower than that of the receiver, despite using the guidelines' assumption that the household of the paying parent has only a single person and no direct expenditures on the children. In reality, one must remember that the children might be living with the paying parent up to 40% of the time and in that case, his or her direct expenditures on the children would only be marginally less than those of the receiving parent. Clearly being left with a disposable income half that of the receiving parent, the paying parent would not be in a position to provide a comparable standard of living for the children while they are with him.
"This November 1996 draft report with its case examples exposes the deficiencies in the child-support formula. Had it been published in the fall of 1996, as promised earlier, I do not believe the guidelines would have made it through Parliament in their present form. This, I believe, explains why the formula was not published in the fall of 1996.
"In all subsequent drafts, the detailed financial analysis and all the examples which exposed the true financial hardship inflicted by the Guidelines were deleted, so unless you do the detailed analysis yourself—which takes some time and knowledge—you cannot appreciate how it affects families and children. It took the Justice Department 18 months to remove the examples and financial analysis and edit this 31-page draft document down to nine pages which say far less about the nature of the Guidelines than the original. The fact that it has now been revealed that there was a comprehensive draft ready in November 1996 raises serious questions as to why the release of this document was delayed in an open and democratic society."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
