Source: http://www.boulbyweinberg.com/news-post/spousal-support-advisory-guidelines-high-income-families/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 16:45:32+00:00

Document:
Almost a decade into the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (“SSAG”) era, we are coming to terms with the guidelines. Courts are using SSAG fairly routinely and thereby providing more predictability to parties although the suggested support ranges are not always met with enthusiasm by recipients or payors. SSAG appear to have raised average spousal support awards in some communities and lowered them in others. Anecdotally, SSAGs have increased marginal support awards where pre SSAG no support would likely have been agreed to or, possibly, even asked for. After initial skepticism in Ontario, since the Court of Appeal decision in Fisher v. Fisher2, courts have increasingly applied SSAG as a matter of course. The remaining areas of contention are the outlying situations highlighted by the devisors of SSAG in the initial statement of the proposal, such as variations and high income families.3 The latter is the subject of this paper.
SSAG set broad income limits from nil to $350,000/year over which warnings are programmed to appear on the Divorcemate software. It is intriguing that years after the introduction of the Federal Child Support Guidelines which at first the bar believed to have a hard limit of $150,000 (that did not survive the first significant high income case, Francis v. Baker4) that the SSAG drafters should have chosen to impose an income limit at all and that it should be at a higher level than child support. Following Francis v. Baker and a cluster of high income cases a rough rule of thumb that no court would interfere with table child support for annual income at or under $1 million/year has settled into practice. Is there an equivalent rule thumb for SSAG high income cases?
The shorthand term “ceiling” may be misleading. Under the Federal Child Support Guidelines, there is no absolute ceiling, just an income level above which the standard fixed-percentage-of-income formula can be varied, to generate a lesser percentage of income above that level. We propose a similar approach here. The ceiling is a gross annual payor income of $350,000. After the payor’s gross income reaches the ceiling of $350,000, the formulas should no longer be automatically applied to divide income beyond that threshold. But the $350,000 is not a “cap” either, as spousal support can and often will increase for income above that ceiling, on a case-by-case basis.
There is now a reasonably deep jurisprudence that has developed across the country on SSAG making it possible to identify a direction.
This may seem an obvious point given that the drafters took pains to explain that ceiling did not mean “cap.” Courts have affirmed this on numerous occasions. In Elgner v. Elgner, Madam Justice Greer describes the SSAGs as “ a starting point.”6 In Trombetta v. Trombetta McMunagle J. also stated that the $350,000 ceiling is not a cap.7 Having said that in neither of those cases did the court simple order the SSAG generated support figure. In each case, the courts considered the SSAG figure and ordered a lower monthly amount.
Are courts applying SSAG to high income cases? If by this question we really mean need counsel do no more than input the income and push enter on the support calculation software, then the answer is no. Yet SSAG is almost invariably referenced by the courts. The decisions that stand for the proposition SSAG is of no use are far and few between. In the high income cases, the SSAG calculations and concepts are almost invariably considered but are used a little more subtly, perhaps, than in the lower income ranges to provide a cross check to the quantum of support the court deems appropriate. Where budgets and lifestyle are carefully proven at a high level, the SSAG ranges provide reassurance to a court that a significant spousal support award is appropriate, albeit possibly in an amount somewhat short of the actual ranges.
Gray v. Gray CarswellOnt 13066 (Ont.C.A.) is a recent statement of how to use SSAG in variation cases.
Cork v. Cork 2014 CarswellOnt 5516 (Ont.S.C.) at para. 28-30.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.