Section 19(1) of the Child Support Guidelines sets out a non-exhaustive list of circumstances under which a Court can impute income to a payor. Section 19(1)(f) says income may be imputed when:
(f) the parent or spouse has failed to provide income information when under a legal obligation to do so.
Disclosure Obligations
Ontario legislation requires a party who is served with an application for an order for support and whose income information is necessary to determine the support amount to produce income disclosure (a list of this disclosure is set out in Section 21 of the Child Support Guidelines).
Moreover, when an Application including a claim for support is started, the Court makes an Automatic Order from the get-go, which requires the party responding to a support claim to serve financial/income disclosure. Subsequent disclosure orders are also a routine part of family law matters.
Whether the obligation comes from the legislation or a Court Order, a support payor is obligated to produce financial disclosure. This was succinctly reiterated in Neves v Pinto: Not only was Ms. Pinto statutorily obligated to produce complete financial disclosure, there were court orders that specifically required her to do so. Parties are not free to disregard court orders. Court orders are to be obeyed. Non-compliance with court orders must have consequences (Neves v Pinto 2020 ONSC 3098).
Imputing Income
When a payor fails to provide the court with income information, the court is entitled to draw an adverse inference and impute income (Jean-Gilles v Paculanang, 2022 ONSC 4264).
A party cannot ask the Court to make income findings that are favourable to them and unfavourable to another party while at the same time shielding information that is relevant to the determination of their income. There is a positive obligation on support payors to disclose all relevant evidence required to enable the Court and the other parties to obtain a true and complete picture of their income for support purposes (Templeton v Nuttall, 2018 ONSC 815).
In Neves v Pinto, the payor failed to disclose income information that she was legally obligated to provide. As a result, the Court found that income should be imputed to her. The Court stated “Ms. Pinto’s failures to disclose and inability to be forthright about her finances lead to an inference that she has undisclosed income and/or assets”.
In Parham v Jiang, Justice Smith found that the payor father provided some information about his finances, but failed to provide updated financial statements despite repeated requests. As a result, the Court found that it had no other option but to draw an adverse inference and conclude that the father was “purposely attempting to present an incomplete or inaccurate pictures of his financial circumstances”. The father failed to provide adequate financial disclosure, including evidence of his receipt of EI, and the Court imputed income to him and made a support order (Parham v Jiang, 2013 ONSC 6003).
In Jean-Gilles v Paculanang, the payor completely failed to respond to the Applicant’s Application and failed to provide the court with his income information. Justice Kraft held that the payor was properly served with the Applicant’s uncontested trial material, with the Court’s Endorsements, and that the payor had in fact emailed court staff, which confirmed that he had notice that the Court was determining the Applicant’s claims. Justice Kraft held that this was an appropriate case to draw an adverse inference against the payor for his failure to comply with his disclosure obligations, the Family Law Rules, and the Court’s Orders. Her Honour imputed income to the payor (Jean-Gilles v Paculanang, 2022 ONSC 4264).
Basis for Income Imputed
The case law sets out a variety of rationales for determining the amount of income to impute to a payor who has failed to provide disclosure. Lifestyle, past patterns of income, and past voluntary payments of support are only some of the examples of the grounds on which a Court has determined the income to be imputed.
For example, in Jean-Gilles v Paculanang, Justice Kraft selected the mid-point between:
- $1,000.00, which is what the support recipient testified the payor told her that his support obligation should be per month; and
- $600.00, which is what the support payor actually paid to the recipient for a short period of time.
In Manji v Manji, the payor argued that he was incapable of working, but he failed to provide fulsome disclosure and information and the Court drew an adverse inference against him. The Court imputed income to the payor on the basis of his most recent employment income (Manji v Manji, 2025 ONSC 1063).
Ultimately, in determining the income to be imputed, the court must consider what is reasonable in the circumstances and determine the income by applying “a rational basis that is grounded in the evidence” (Jean-Gilles v Paculanang, 2022 ONSC 4264).
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