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A man who provided “misleading information about his income” at the time that he separated from his ex-wife is now facing a child support bill of over half-a-million dollars.

The man, who was identified only as “C.D.” in a B.C. Supreme Court judgment issued on Sept. 1, married his ex-wife in 1994; they separated in 2001, and had two children together.

The pair came to a separation agreement in 2003.

In it, the two of them agreed that the man’s baseline income was $90,551, that he would pay $1,182 per month in child support, as well as $372 to cover transportation costs to transfer the kids to the Nanaimo ferry terminal, the judgment said.

Coverage of child support on Globalnews.ca:

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The amount of child support was later raised to $1,600 per month.

In 2010, the father sold a business for $4 million, an amount that would be paid through a cheque for $1.25 million that year, followed by payments of $250,000 every year from 2011 to 2020 and $157,000 by October 2021. His Line 150 income on his tax return was $773,127 that year.

He cut his child support payments by half, without notice, to $800, in 2015, five years after the sale closed.

The mother, a teacher’s aide who makes $28,470 per year, commenced legal action the same year.

Justice Young of the B.C. Supreme Court determined that the man misled about his income when he and his ex-wife entered a Separation Agreement and “never corrected that misinformation.”

“His income has always been dramatically higher than that which he disclosed in the Separation Agreement,” she wrote. It was well over $150,000 in some years, she added.

The father now owes $522,408.24 in child support, and it’s “payable forthwith.”

Justice Young also ordered that the father pay $1,041 in continuing monthly child support, money that will “constitute his contribution toward their education expenses.”

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