Barrie M. Hayes, Partner, Family Law
The Income Tax Act recognizes spousal support payments as a tax-deductible expenditure.
The Act recognizes both married and common- law spousal support payments as tax-deductible. In order to qualify as a tax-deductible expenditure the spousal support order needs to;
1. Be embodied in a court order or written…
Thomas C. Dart, Partner, Family Law.
If you are separated and have either a court order or separation agreement under which you have to make support payments to your ex-spouse, you may think that, once you retire, you won’t have to continue making your payments. Well the answer is, it depends….
The law says…
By Douglas J. Manning, Partner, Certified Specialist in Family Law
We are often asked by clients if they can “use” their legal costs they incur to establish their support obligations and rights as a deduction from income for tax purposes? The short answer is that the portion of the legal fees incurred by the…
By Douglas J. Manning, Partner, Certified Specialist in Family Law
As more and more “baby boomers” approach their retirement years and more spouses have separated or divorced, when compared with earlier generations, a question that may be asked with greater frequency could be: “If I retire, will my spousal support obligation to my former…
Barrie Hayes, Partner, Family Law
There is a marked difference in the legal approach to quantifying support claims when a support payor is living as opposed to after a support payor has died.
In situations where the support payor is living the Divorce Act determines child and spousal support for married support payors and…
By Douglas J. Manning, Partner, Certified Specialist in Family Law
A recent, highly publicized, spousal support decision sheds light on how the “other half” live (and how they end up paying their support).
Michael McCain, one of the children of Wallace McCain (a wealthy businessman in the food industry) and his wife of 30…
Barrie Hayes, Partner
In my previous blog I described the formulaic calculation used by the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (“ SSAG”) to determine spousal support in circumstances where the parties had no children.
In this article I will focus on the SSAG formulaic calculation to determine spousal support in circumstances where the parties have…
Barrie Hayes, Partner
The differing approaches to the calculation of spousal support under the spousal support advisory guidelines.
The spousal support advisory guidelines contain formulaic calculations to assist in the calculation of both quantum (amount) and duration of spousal support.
The guidelines contain markedly different formulaic calculations when addressing spousal support calculation where there…
Many people are surprised by the high cost of legal services when they go through separation and divorce. It is not unusual to spend tens of thousands of dollars to have issues resolved even in an “amicable divorce”. Here are some of the reasons.
First, in most cases, people have many issues to resolve:
1) …
Although Ontario common law spouses have a statutory right to receive spousal support upon separation, there is no statutory recognition of common law spouses in claims for property. The Family Law Act, in dealing with equalization of net family property, limits spouses to legal married spouses only.
Courts in Ontario, however, have historically granted…
