Larsen and Vancliff (Child support)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the child support assessment for the parties, Larsen and Vancliff. The dispute concerned whether certain post-separation costs should be excluded from the adjusted taxable income of one of the parties for the last relevant year when calculating child support obligations.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether an amount of income earned by one party after separation, which was not in the ordinary course of their employment, should be excluded from their adjusted taxable income for the purposes of the child support assessment.

The Tribunal reasoned that the specific nature of the income in question, being earned outside the ordinary course of employment and post-separation, warranted its exclusion from the adjusted taxable income calculation. This approach aligned with the principles of ensuring a fair and accurate reflection of a party's capacity to pay child support, taking into account circumstances that arose after the separation of the parents. The Tribunal applied the relevant provisions of the *Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988* concerning the calculation of adjusted taxable income.

The decision under review was set aside and substituted with a new assessment that excluded the specified post-separation income.