I have a statement.
Thank you for inviting us to respond to your questions.
I am here to speak to you about the impact of the new Canada child benefit on the federal child support guidelines.
Bill C-15 proposes to replace the Canada child tax benefit and the universal child care benefit with a new Canada child benefit, which for simplicity, I will refer to as the CCB. The CCB will be a monthly amount paid to help families with the cost of raising children. It will not be considered income for tax purposes. The Department of Justice has been asked to provide information on the impacts, if any, of the CCB on the federal child support guidelines. The current Canada child tax benefit is used for comparison purposes, as from a child support perspective, it's very similar in its application to the new CCB.
Federal, provincial, and territorial governments share responsibility for family law matters. Provincial and territorial governments are responsible for laws that apply to unmarried couples and married couples who separate but do not divorce. The federal government is responsible for marriage and divorce laws. The federal child support guidelines are regulations under the Divorce Act. They consist of a set of rules and tables to apply to determine child support in divorce cases. Provinces and territories have adopted similar guidelines, except the Province of Quebec, which has its own model.
Would the Canada child benefit be considered income under the federal child support guidelines? A key point in understanding the impact on child support is that the CCB would not be considered income for the purpose of the federal guidelines. Under the federal guidelines, the amount of child support paid is determined in part based on a parent's income. The income is used to determine the appropriate basic child support amount under the federal child support tables, which are based on the number of children and the parent's province or territory of residence. The federal guidelines include specific rules to calculate income for child support purposes.
First, you look at the sources of income set out under the heading “total income”, which is line 150 in the T1 general income tax form. Because it will be non-taxable, the CCB will not be included in a person's total income. Second, you adjust the parent's total income in accordance with schedule 3 of the federal child support guidelines. Schedule 3 does not contain adjustments to allow the inclusion in a parent's income used for table purposes of governmental benefits such as the Canada child tax benefit or the new Canada child benefit. This is because these benefits are considered the government's contribution to children and not general income in the hands of parents.
