Parnell and Colbeck (Child support)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the matter of Parnell and Colbeck concerning a child support assessment. The dispute centred on whether certain post-separation costs should be excluded from the adjusted taxable income of one of the parties for the last relevant year.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether an amount of additional income, earned not in the ordinary course of business after separation, should be excluded from the calculation of adjusted taxable income for the purposes of the child support assessment.

The Tribunal reasoned that the specific nature of the income, earned after separation and not in the ordinary course of business, warranted its exclusion from the adjusted taxable income. This approach aligns with the principles of ensuring that child support assessments accurately reflect a party's capacity to pay, taking into account circumstances that arose post-separation and were not part of their regular income-earning activities.

The decision under review was set aside and substituted with a new assessment that excluded the specified amount from the adjusted taxable income.