A proposed amendment to the program, Bill 29, The Family Law Amendment Act, which was introduced March 16 in the Legislature, addresses what happens if those registered with the program fail to provide documentation each year to show their current income.

The new legislation states that if a party fails to provide an income tax return, notice of assessment and short questionnaire, child support the next year will be recalculated as if that payor’s income had gone up by 10 per cent. An additional three per cent would be added for each additional year since the order was granted or recalculated. The maximum deemed income increase would be 25 per cent, and would be applied to orders where five or more years have passed since income was last determined.

This amendment encourages parents to comply with their obligation to provide income disclosure. It also ensures that one parent’s failure to disclose their income as legally required does not mean the other parent and child(ren) are denied services from the new program.

The five existing recalculation programs in British Columbia, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Nunavut only recalculate orders granted after their programs were created. Alberta’s program will help parties with child support orders dating back to May 1997, when the Child Support Guidelines were first introduced. This increases access to justice even further as Albertans will not have to go back to court to get new orders so they can participate in the Child Support Recalculation Program. The program is expected to be operational later this year.