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Divorce/separation

bonuses and child maintenance

5 replies

maintenancequestion · 07/01/2015 10:06

My partner gets an annual bonus (variable each year). I believe he should be paying some to his ex in child maintenance but can't find any guidance on how much.
At the moment he overpays the child maintenance each month on the agreement he will keep his bonus if he gets one but in the future wants to pay appropriate maintenance each month and the appropriate portion of any bonus he receives. Just not sure what that amount should be. Does anyone know?
Thanks

OP posts:
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maintenancequestion · 07/01/2015 10:08

ex is talking about going through CSA. No problem for her to do this as he isn't hiding anything - but if she does will it cost him admin fees or anything?

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STIDW · 07/01/2015 16:07

Parents can agree the amount of child maintenance between themselves - see CM Options website for resources and a calculator. IF agreement can't be reached new child maintenance applications are handled by the Child Maintenance Service rather than the CSA. The CMS calculation is based on information from tax returns held by HMRC. So child maintenance is paid at the appropriate percentage of any taxable income minus deductions for the average number of overnight stays children have with the paying parent.

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STIDW · 08/01/2015 19:01

Sorry I forgot to answer the second post. If she goes to the CMS there is an application fee of £20 she will need to pay. The CMS then carry out the basic calculation. There are then two different services, Direct Pay and a Collect & Pay. When parents use Direct Pay there is no fee. If they use Collect & Pay the paying parent pays an additional 20% fee and the receiving parent pays a a fee of 4% of the child maintenance they receive.

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HerRoyalNotness · 08/01/2015 19:09

Bonus is treated as income, so should be at the same rate he is paying on the monthly maintenance

what counts as income

Under CSA it used to be 20% of net income for 2 DC. Now it's changed to a % of gross income, I don't know what they are, I've looked at the CMEC page, but it's not clear, they talk about 5 different rates used depending on earnings, I couldn't see what the rates were

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HerRoyalNotness · 08/01/2015 19:16

cmec calculator

You can put the figures in here.

Based on 100k gross, 2 DC, 52-103 nights, it's 225/week which is 11.7% of gross income

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