Maintenance avoidance and fake redundancy

[sneakysneak]

Ex has form for financial abuse and since separation has gone to great lengths to reduce maintenance liability. He has (had) a full time job plus self employment doing the same thing as day job. Worked in his day job for many years and his employer was always open to changing his position so that he did all the same work but as self employed rather than employed, though this never happened til now. He now states he has to pay much less maintenance because the company has gone bust and he has been made redundant. I have found out some information. The company he originally worked for is still running. One of the directors set up a new company 2 years ago. That company has no presence anywhere (completely invisible) so is dubious and has never filed accounts. Ex's employment seems to have been transferred to this second company and this company has made him redundant. The original company and the new/now defunct company share a director and are at the same address. He tells people the company has gone bust, but original company is still active. I suspect that the second company was set up purely to transfer his employment into and then make him redundant. Because the new company has gone into liquidation, he can claim a redundancy payment from the government scheme, though he is not short of money and hasn't done this yet. He does intend to though.

Has he done anything illegal? Or has the employer? It's a small company of misogynistic divorced middle aged blokes and they would absolutely do this to help him avoid paying maintenance. He tells people a crock of shit about me.

He has no idea I know all of this information but I have come about it all by fair means. Is there anything I could or should do about it? He will do anything not to provide appropriate financial support to DCs. Thanks and sorry for the long post.

[RedHelenB]

Think you may be banging your head on a brick walk here. Self employed people seem to get away with fiddling things in a way you can't when you're PAYE.

[sneakysneak]

Yes I realise that self-employment is the favourite route to paying little or no maintenance. I am hoping that the lengths they have gone to might lead to repercussions though. Especially setting up a company specifically to make them redundant and claiming a redundancy payment from the state

[dodgyex]

You could always whistle blow. Companies have to be registered with companies House and if tax avoidance is suspected HMRC will investigate too

[OverTheHedgeHammy]

To reduce maintenance payments he will also be reducing his tax payments, so HMRC is the best route. It depends on whether thy decide to pursue it though.

[sneakysneak]

Thanks - in principle is it allowable to transfer the employment of one staff member to a separate company in order to make them redundant at no cost to the company? And does anyone know, if I did alert HMRC, whether CMS will assist in any way? They have asked him for documentation which so far he hasn't provided. He has already managed one year where he paid less than 10% of his income for 2 children. He's also come into a lot of money recently which is not considered for CM.

[dodgyex]

Once HMRC have done an investigation (hopefully they will) and updated his earnings and tax owed etc that will go on his tax file which CMS have full access to