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).