Ex avoiding maintenance by going self employed..

[Lilypiesmum]

I am livid, my EXH went 'self employed' in 2012, since then I've received £52pw from him. After two years I asked the CSA to reassess him, they wrote to me telling me I should now get £140pw...brilliant I thought, until I got a new letter only 3 weeks later stating it's now £21pw.

It turns out he didn't provide the information the first time, so they used their calculator to take a 'stab' at what he 'might' earn and based the £140pw calculation on that!! He's then sent in his books, which are very well cooked, and now I'm only entitled to £18pw.

The CSA are useless and really do not want me to dispute this or ask for a mandatory consideration. I'm disgusted he's a self employed IT contractor who's sneakily claiming he only earns £145pw......

I don't seem to have a leg to stand on :(

[NeedsAsockamnesty]

Have you considered variation application?

[starlight1234]

These type of threads appear on here with great regularity. Sadly I don't see any threads where the CSA has ever seemed to address this

[SirChenjin]

Do you have anything to prove he earns more than £145 per week? Any paperwork etc that you could use to build a case against him?

[Siarie]

Are we talking self employed sole trader or limited company?

[HowamIgoingtocope]

If he's a sole trader you will have problems. If he's a limited company you can fond.out his lasy years income from the companies house webite. My ex realised this and told.companies house he was trading as a.sole trader. Basically the csa hasn't.got.the time for self employed absent parents and the resident parents have to suffer. Both my ex and a friends ex both earn in excess of 30k a year and the children get pittance. Yet we know.they earn more.

[WakeyCakey45]

But if he's a sole trader, there is more risk of him being caught out by HMRC by not declaring all his earned income. They have started to come down really hard on sole traders in recent years and if he's declaring such a low profit, then it's likely they'll be looking into his accounting sooner or later.

[HowamIgoingtocope]

Owakey, he can declare it correctly to hmrc just not to the op. As a sole trader he isn't liable to shoe earnings to anyone but hmrc. So it would be difficult to get the correct amount from him even if heehaw declared correctly.

[WakeyCakey45]

They share info now. CSA can ask for Self Assessment figures, as far as I know.

[WakeyCakey45]

www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/idgmanual/IDG61020.htm

[HowamIgoingtocope]

that is interesting , tbh should have known as i know about real time information. may enquire with the csa as i know he earns more ( doing his accounts for three years helped.)

[Limbinthesup]

OP sadly many men do this - you can see from the gingerbread site that over half of single parents don't get ANY maintenance at all.
I'm on £5pw for the same reason (his previous salary of his was £45k three years ago but now apparently he is below the poverty line but still living in London with an audi) if it makes you feel any better!