Form 13
You know that paperwork is my nemesis, right? Or maybe some of you think my idiot ex-husband is my nemeses. However if we cleverly combine copious amounts of paperwork with the undeniable fact that I wouldn’t need to do any of it if it weren’t for my idiot ex-husband, we have some kind of amazing uber-nemeses certain to defeat me, right?
Wrong! I have triumphed over copious amounts of idiot ex-husband induced paperwork and I intend to brag about it.
You guys are basically the audience I’m going to brag to all right? Ulysses, after about the forth time I mentioned tackling the paperwork with the strength of a thousand ex-wives, looked like he might be about to nod off. I can’t see why, since I spiced up the story as much as possible. I figure that you guys can nod off all you like and I can still pretend that you were riveted. We’re all better looking and more witty on-line, people: that’s why God invented the internet.
So there was this huge form I had to fill out, see? And it asked for detailed financial information for an entire year, right? I had to call, like, six hundred toll-free numbers to collect all of this information, and then I had to make notes and provide documentation on how I had reached all of these figures. It took at least three days of pulling everything together (not to mention three months of looking at the form and procrastinating). But now, now, I have completed Form 13: Financial Disclosure. I hope to never see Form 13: Financial Disclosure ever again. It is safely in the hands of my lawyer. My lawyer will make one of his office minions type it up and send it to the one of this great country’s fine court houses.
And then do you know what happens? My idiot ex-husband will be served with a notice that we are going to court. He will be required to fill out Form 13: Financial Disclosure.
Yes, yes, yes! I have inflicted paperwork on my idiot ex-husband as lo, he has inflicted it on me! For three days and three nights, oh how he will sweat and curse as he wrestles with the finding out how much his telephone bill cost in the 2005 year. How he will be put on hold! How his bank will attempt to inflict punishing service charges! How he will calculate with a calculator the average cost of washing his clothing in the Laundromat, how he will be tempted to just guesstimate, how he will not dare to guesstimate!
That the hearing may cause him to actually pay child support again is almost beside the point considering all of the glee I’m deriving from this.
Hoisted by his own petard!
Wrong! I have triumphed over copious amounts of idiot ex-husband induced paperwork and I intend to brag about it.
You guys are basically the audience I’m going to brag to all right? Ulysses, after about the forth time I mentioned tackling the paperwork with the strength of a thousand ex-wives, looked like he might be about to nod off. I can’t see why, since I spiced up the story as much as possible. I figure that you guys can nod off all you like and I can still pretend that you were riveted. We’re all better looking and more witty on-line, people: that’s why God invented the internet.
So there was this huge form I had to fill out, see? And it asked for detailed financial information for an entire year, right? I had to call, like, six hundred toll-free numbers to collect all of this information, and then I had to make notes and provide documentation on how I had reached all of these figures. It took at least three days of pulling everything together (not to mention three months of looking at the form and procrastinating). But now, now, I have completed Form 13: Financial Disclosure. I hope to never see Form 13: Financial Disclosure ever again. It is safely in the hands of my lawyer. My lawyer will make one of his office minions type it up and send it to the one of this great country’s fine court houses.
And then do you know what happens? My idiot ex-husband will be served with a notice that we are going to court. He will be required to fill out Form 13: Financial Disclosure.
Yes, yes, yes! I have inflicted paperwork on my idiot ex-husband as lo, he has inflicted it on me! For three days and three nights, oh how he will sweat and curse as he wrestles with the finding out how much his telephone bill cost in the 2005 year. How he will be put on hold! How his bank will attempt to inflict punishing service charges! How he will calculate with a calculator the average cost of washing his clothing in the Laundromat, how he will be tempted to just guesstimate, how he will not dare to guesstimate!
That the hearing may cause him to actually pay child support again is almost beside the point considering all of the glee I’m deriving from this.
Hoisted by his own petard!
posted by queen of the harpies @ 12:11 PM
3 Comments:
At 9:35 PM,
Anonymous said…
I don't have an ex-husband who doesn't pay child support, for that matter, I don't have an ex-husband at all. But, your post made me very happy knowing that you were going to put the pressure on your non-child-support-paying ex. I am unsure exactly why, but the glee I feel is almost evil. People who don't own up to their responsibilities (esp men not taking responsiblity for their own kids) annoy the shit out of me.
At 11:39 AM,
queen of the harpies said…
I think it’s annoying too. But I also think that the system itself is fairly screwy. In Canada, we have the federal child support tables which simplify the amount of support (it’s based on the non-custodial parent’s gross income and number of children). We also have a very easy calculator for “extraordinary expenses” – which are add-ons to the base table amount. Basically, if you know the non-custodial parent’s gross income, you can calculate the base table amount. If you know this and also know the custodial parent’s gross income and the amount they’re spending on day-care, then you’ve probably captured all of the information you need for 80% of the extraordinary expenses. (You can also count things like piano lessons, orthodontics, and university tuition as extraordinary.)
All of the above-mentioned information is available on our income tax forms. In fact, this is exactly the sort of information the federal government used to assess whether or not one is eligible for the GST credit or Child Tax Benefit.
So why can’t this just be assessed, impersonally, at tax time and a new notice sent to both parents informing them of the change effective July? You could appeal this decision if it wasn’t suitable, but in most cases, it is.
Right now, unless you register your agreement with the courts, it’s as though you don’t have an agreement. If an informal arrangement falls through, you have to wait to apply because it’s considered a brand new case. There’s also no recourse if you find out – as I very much suspect in my case – that the income of the non-custodial parent was misrepresented.
Putting the onus on the custodial parent to hunt down the non-custodial parent over every support issue – you’re entitled to income information on the non-custodial once a year, for example, but only if you explicitly ask for it – makes this incredibly unwieldy and acrimonious.
My ex, for example, has pulled all kinds of nonsense throughout 2005 including: refusing to return my children’s birth certificates, coming up with endless excuses as to why he couldn’t pay the full amount of support, writing letters to my lawyer saying he didn’t like the way I dressed the children, threatening to go after custody so that “[I] would have to pay [him] for once!”, telling me that he was going to put my son in karate (rather than pay child support) and that if I didn’t go along with this I’d be an ‘unfriendly parent’ and could lose custody, refusing to return things like my children’s coats and mittens and telling the children he’d pay them not to bring these things home, calling my daughter’s day-care and telling them he refused to allow me to collect tax receipts (he can’t claim these himself).
And let’s keep in mind that I’m middle class, I have both education and income enough to defend myself. When my ex-husband stopped paying support entirely in November, I had to dip into my savings – but I didn’t worry about getting the rent covered. The costs of dealing with all of this could have easily defeated me much earlier if I didn’t have a cushion of savings to fall back on. I can’t believe I’m a common example. Can you imagine doing this right after separation? While looking for a job? While being a single parent for the first time?
Most importantly, can you imagine having to do this if you’d left an abusive relationship, literally afraid that this anger is going to come back to you in the form of fists?
At 2:39 PM,
Tammy said…
I think I may have actually said "Hurrah!" or "Yeah!" or "Boo-ya!" or something to that effect when I read your post.
When my parents divorced when I was eight, my "father" had no compunction about skipping out on child support for me and my three siblings. As a result, we lived with our mom in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, with two sets of bunkbeds in the wee bedroom and my mom on a pullout sofa in the living room. PLUS, when my family's dairy farm had to be sold, they were supposed to divide the proceeds of the sale, but he managed to keep my mom from seeing any of the money and then frittered it all away. My mom, without even a high-school degree under her belt, had no idea how to take action against him, something he totally exploited.
Yeah, he's a scumbag. And he wonders now why none of his offspring speak to him. So I probably speak with more vehemence than is seemly when I urge you to go after the fucker, saskatchewan.
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