The Legal Practitioner's Guide
1.5 Which components of the Formula can be varied?
When either party seeks to depart from the child support formula through a court order or
child support agreement due to their special circumstances, they can request a modification
of most components of the formula. The usual (and easiest) components for change would be
to:
-
vary a parent's adjusted taxable income (ATI) – this may be appropriate where a
parent has resources not reflected in their adjusted taxable income. Such a variation
allows for normal formula variations due to relevant dependent children and yearly
indexation of the self-support amount;
-
vary a parent's self-support amount (or relevant dependent child amount or multi-case
allowance) – this may be appropriate where the parent has high necessary living
costs, or bears high costs for a child in a new family or in another child support
case;
-
vary a parent's child support income – may be increased or decreased by a
particular amount, or set at a particular amount;
-
vary the parents' cost percentages – this may be appropriate where a parent
bears a greater percentage of the child's costs than would normally be incurred at
their level of care (for example, meeting all the school fees despite having 20% care).
It is necessary to vary the other parent's cost percentage so that they add up to 100%;
-
vary the cost of the child – this may be appropriate, for example, if the child
has special needs or school fees are high; and
-
vary or set the annual rate payable by a parent – this may be appropriate if the
circumstances are too complex to adjust other components of the formula, or if parents
agree that one of them should bear all the additional cost of school fees, for
example.
More information on varying elements of the formula is available in chapter 4.