Does a payor's pattern of under-reporting income in past years increase scrutiny in a new application?

Yes, a documented history of under-reporting income is relevant evidence a court can consider in a new support application, since it goes directly to the payor's credibility and can make a court more willing to look critically at their current reported income rather than accepting it at face value. Where a payor has previously been found, through a prior court finding, tax reassessment, or other clear evidence, to have understated their true earnings, that history reasonably supports closer scrutiny of their current financial disclosure, including a greater willingness to order broader production of records or draw adverse inferences from gaps in disclosure.

This doesn't mean a court will automatically assume the same level of under-reporting is happening again, since each application still needs to be assessed on its own current evidence, but a credibility problem established in the past doesn't simply evaporate on its own. A payor with this kind of history is generally in a weaker position to argue for minimal disclosure or to have their bare tax return accepted without further inquiry. Because credibility findings can carry forward, a recipient dealing with a payor who has a documented history of under-reporting should specifically raise that history as part of the current disclosure request.