|

Can My Ex Use Her Benefits to Pay Her Half of Our Child’s Medical and Dental Expenses?

Parents do have to share the cost of medical and dental expenses on top of base child support in Ontario and Canada. When parents separate, there are two parts of child support – the monthly base or table amount and special and extraordinary expenses. Necessary health and dental expenses for their children are “special expenses” that separated parents always have to share in proportion to their incomes.

Frequently, parents have benefits available to them through work that pay some or all of prescription drug and other medical expenses, and dental expenses. Other parents purchase health insurance to cover their children because it is less expensive than paying individual expenses – especially for children with health issues. Sometimes when that parent has that insurance available, the parent tries to use the insurance to pay his or her share of the shared special or extraordinary expense. However, that is not how things are supposed to be done.

If you are a parent who is paying or receiving child support, it can be important to pull up the Child Support Guidelines and actually read them:

Section 7(1)(c) says that the special expense that is shared is that part of the health-related expense that exceeds insurance reimbursement by $100 annually. So, your ex cannot include the insurance reimbursement as part of the total expense that he or she shares with you.

However, s. 7(1)(b) says that if a parent is paying for the health insurance for the children, the portion of her health insurance premiums that a parent pays personally, that is attributable to the child is shared between both parents as a special expense. That means if the other parent is paying for health insurance for a child, and not just getting it free through work, then the other parent has to share in the cost of that insurance, in proportion to the parent’s respective incomes.

It is also important to remember that section 7(3) of the Child Support Guidelines says that when calculating the amount of the expense to be shared, the parent who incurred the expense must deduct the income tax credits and deductions available to him or her (whether or not he or she claims those credits and deductions). Health care expenses, especially for children eligible for the Disability Tax Credit, can generate large tax savings. That tax savings have to be included in the calculation of what the parents share. Some parents can get a tax deception for buying private health insurance. So, no matter what, it is not the entire cost of the health expenses or the health insurance that parents must share on top of base child support payments.

John Schuman Guide to the Basics of Ontario Family Law book cover

You can get a lot more information about Ontario Family Law issues, including a comprehensive explanation of parenting cases (parenting time and decision making), child support, spousal support, property division, and most other common family law issues by downloading this $9.99 Kindle eBook, Kobo eBook, or iBook for your iPad or iPhone or ordering it from Amazon as a paperback. But to understand how the law works precisely in your situation, it is always best to speak to a good Family Law Lawyer.

To comment on this article, or to contact John Schuman, please use the form below.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *