Angry about CM

I would just tell him you will be keeping an eye on how well his business is doing every month and comparing it to how much child support he pays towards his child. Every single month. You will be keeping a list. And you will be letting his child know when he's old enough how big of a shit his father was when it came to supporting him.

OP, you are tedious.

The legalities ARE exactly how you will get your money.

You don't understand what you're talking about, and don't have the time to listen because you're so sure that "well he's not earning anything himself" and that's the end of it.

It's not.

You get a variation through CMS. You get your local MP involved. You get their Financial Investigation Unit to work out what he's diverting.

I say this as not only a qualified accountant, but as someone who has spent the last 3 years doing exactly that, with the CMS. You need to fight for it. Unless you get the FIU involved, it's literally like dealing with trained chimps. It will take a long time. But you will get there.

FIU have just finished my variations and he now owes me over £30k, and that's just the arrears, without the ongoing. However, they haven't managed to get a penny of that off him yet. They will, even if I wait until he draws his pension.

But you need to stop blindly going down a road that you don't understand, but talking with conviction as if you do. Because you need to know your stuff when you're taking the CMS to task.

I run a business, he is definitely doing something dodgy as you can't just take the profits from a Ltd company without paying tax (not corporation tax but personal, this would be a salary or dividends) it's been said many times in this thread but I really think he needs reporting to the tax man. An investigation into his books would wipe the smug smile off his face surely?! Can't stand people who try to defraud others, particularly their own children!

My ex did the same.
I suspect, but can't prove, that he does a lot of cash work which he doesn't declare.
So he lives off the cash and doesn't take a salary from the limited company
Tosser.

Yeh, that won't work. He could pay her minimum wage as admin staff, sure. That would reduce his earnings.

But then that's all he's getting out of the business is that paltry tiny wage.

They've got to get the money out of the company somehow. Otherwise they can't access it themselves.

Oh indeed but he could just claim she just his booking of appointments or something for him totally easy enough. Pay a basic minimum wage.

What an arse. He should want to help support the people he wants the best for and loves the most.

You can get your claim investigated by the CM financial investigation unit. I think you need to request a mandatory reconsideration and then it can be referred to the unit.

I would speak to a competent CM advisor on the helpline to discuss your options. Be prepared to wait in the queue. When you get through check whether you have come through to their triage unit or it has gone to a CM advisor. They can put a flag on so when you phone through it will go to the advisors direct.

What you need to do OP, is ask for a variation.

This is where someone is diverting or not declaring income.

What does he do? For example if he's an electrician, the LTD company is an electrical services company, but he's employed his girlfriend (who holds zero electrical qualifications and clearly isn't the one performing the work) then CMS will just laugh at him and include the whole amount he's "paying" her as his assessable amount.

Dividends, you need to ask them to do a variation for them to take into account. This was supposed to have been updated so you didn't have to ask them anymore, but they are quite useless so you'll probably need too.

You can also declare that his lifestyle doesn't match the lack of income he's declaring. Eg. Earns no money but drives a new car and he's on his second holiday this year. They don't believe the "it's my girlfriend's" any more than you do. Also, I think any assets he holds can be taken into account.

I had similar happen to me. Went from £70 a week to £7 as ex set up a limited company to reduce her salary to the minimum to avoid paying CM. Was pretty sickening to know she did this and not wish to support her daughter.

CMS do have a financial investigation unit. You have just got to keep following their processes to get to this stage. Its whether you have the will power and energy to fight this and takes time. I gave up but i can just about manage on my salary.

He's on dodgy ground paying an unrelated person he's not married to/in a civil partnership with a salary from the company unless she is working properly for the company. (Artic Systems case.)

No.

He's either drawing a salary, which would be one of the expenses of the business.

Or paying himself a dividend from current or prior profits (think of this like a lump of salary all in one go and just as liable for CMS as a salary)

There is a third option of a directors loan account, where he just takes money, but creates a debt in the companies books and has to pay it back. If he doesn't there are massive tax penalties. Most people run up a loan account during the year, then issue a dividend to clear the balance at the year end (see above for dividends)

Essentially, there is zero way he is taking money, for free, that would not be counted by CMS as income.

What letting their dad actually do something useful?

He must get a lot of cash payments, either that or all of his monthly personal spending is done through expenses.

My limited company doesn't deal with cash payments at all, the profits after wages, expenses and dividends belong to the business, not me. They are just sitting there while I figure out what to do with them, I'm definitely not allowed to just withdraw it with no consequences through HMRC!

Not saying I get paid what I mean is the companies income is all cash so I could just not declare some.

That would be my worst nightmare

Basically I’m guessing he earns a lot of his money in cash. As I do as a director of a Ltd company.

Now legally this is all to be recorded however I’m guessing he keeps a certain amount to his pocket and everything else goes in the company and thus he isn’t taking a wage. But being all “above board” as far as hmrc are concerned as his paying tax etc.

The fact he has a live in gf means he could claim she pays for everything while he runs a hobby company or is building it up still so while he takes no wage op gets no cms.

Or he could even be paying the gf a wage from the company while taking nothing himself at one point in the future again so his cms would be zero.

No it isn’t. The profit belongs to the business, which is a legal entity in its own right. It can then be distributed to the owners of the business, the shareholders, through making a dividend payment. The shareholder of the business, then need to declare these dividends on their individual tax returns.

No it isn't! The profit is the company's, not his. When is becomes his, there is personal tax due on it. He has to pay the personal tax, either on dividend, salary or a combination, before he can spend a penny on the electricity or gas wherever he's living. He can't spend the company's profits on those. Listen to the accountant on the thread (not me, but I pay my accountant a pretty penny to sort my taxes out properly!).

Say oh not to worry lets go to 50/50 with the kids then

The profit belongs to the limited company which is a separate legal entity to directors and shareholders

It’s been a few years since I studied accountancy but you can’t just spend the profits, he’s a tax evading child maintenance avoiding cheesy scrotum!