If you are an employer (or income source), you have a very important role.

You help:

• Ontario families who rely on court-ordered child and spousal support receive their payments, and
  
• the person who is paying the support keep their payment records in good standing.

Under the Family Responsibility and Support Arrears Enforcement Act, 1996, you are legally required to deduct and send support payments to us.

We make sure that support payments flow from the person who pays the support (the payor) to the person who receives it (the recipient).

How the program works

In Ontario, the Family Responsibility Office collects all court-ordered support payments.

If the person who has been ordered to make support payments is employed, we will send the employer a Support Deduction Notice.

If you have an employee who has been ordered to pay support

We will send you the person's support deduction notice. You:

• deduct the support payments from your employee's earnings, and
• send it to us.

This is normal practice in Ontario and across Canada. It does not mean that your employee is having money problems or is in debt.

The law states that employers cannot:

• dismiss
• discipline
• punish, or
• intimidate

an employee for making support payment deductions.

Keeping information confidential

Information about an employee's support deduction payments is confidential. You are legally required to make sure it is kept private. The only people in your organization who need to know are the employee and the staff who make the deductions and send them to us (for example, your payroll staff).

For your convenience, we offer several secure and easy ways for you to send the payments to us.

 

Learn More Read our Fact Sheet: Information for Employers/Income Sources This fact sheet is also available in other languages.