To let you all know that the Child Maintenance Service..

That's still an expensive proposition and requires that all staff complete declarations of how many children they have with how many other parents and how many nights a week they have them and then tell their employer so the employer updates that with HMRC, every time it changes. Being forced to inform your employer about your family history is quite draconian and an invasion of privacy, and therefore it's only put in place when there's a reason for it. At present, many parents use the online calculator and pay without any involvement from CMS and others have an open case which is reviewed annually by CMS or when one parent makes a change on their account.

Lots of absent fathers are self employed, so not under PAYE.

Lots of self employed absent fathers won't have registered for self assessment and won't be declaring their income, so also committing tax and probably benefit fraud too!

Even those who have registered will often be "moonlighting" and doing "cash in hand" jobs where the income doesn't go through their books or tax return.

The black economy tax and benefit fraud is a massive problem costing billions every single year yet HMRC can't be bothered to tackle it and go after easy targets instead, i.e. those making innocent mistakes rather than the deliberate evaders because the latter group are "hard" to deal with.

It should come off your tax code. It's not rocket science, is it?

Nothing has changed in at least the past 30-odd years.

A relative didn't receive a penny - her ex got his boss, a friend, to somehow manipulate his earnings so it looked like he was on a very low wage. In the following years she chased him through the system, to no avail.

As for confiscating a driving licence - this would have little or no effect anyway for most men in the UK.

It was an idea copied from the US where everyone is required by law to have some sort of ID on them, and the driving licence is the most commonly used. It's something that most people have from the age of 16 and you can't even be served in a bar without showing ID. It's a hardship not to have your driving licence in the US, not here.

There is no political will, and never has been, to address the scandal of child maintenance.

The ex's income makes no difference to the amount of CMS he pays.

In this situation, I feel sorry for the taxpayer for funding the mother, and the child for not getting any financial input from the mother, but none at all for the father who is completely unaffected by how the mother chooses to live.

Simply, because it costs money to do that and it feels invasive and overstepping in most families.

NRPs that do not pay can have the money deducted and have to pay a 20% fee for it, which wouldn't be fair to NRPs who have always paid on time and in full. The RP also has to pay a fee (I think it's either 2 or 4%) so it's not ideal for either party.

Also, as noted further up, often the worst offenders aren't salaried. If you're self-employed, or work through agencies, or in some other way have income which is hard to track. They are, to all intents and purposes, exempt for CMS, because the CMS does nothing to investigate how someone driving a Mercedes and living in a 7 bed house has an income below NMW. They just let them off.

it is. not everyone is paid via a salary system. Many people do agency work and swap and change regularly so it is hard to keep up with them. Others are self employed and are paid cash in hand or, if paid otherwise, have accountants who can legitimately hide money to reduce any maintenance owed.

Completely agree. No other part of the British state seems so hopeless.

Why isn't the money taken through salary deduction?

How much physical parenting does he do? Amazing how so many of these men begrudge paying but also don't do much of the parenting!

The whole system genuinely frustrates me and that is as someone who has never had to use CMS and never will, so I cannot imagine how frustrating it is for those that have.

I think the whole thing needs to be overhauled and I think those parents who choose not to pay or wriggle out of paying, should be treated as neglectful parents in the same way the resident parent would if they just stopped feeding and clothing their child. Its shocking that parents can just opt out because they cant afford it, it should never be a negotiable payment in the same way the parent looking after the child cant say I cant afford food and just stop feeding their child - that would have social services involvement immediately. So why does the other parent get to opt in and out of their responsibilities?

because His ex has opted out of financially contributing and leaves it to him and the state

Why do you sympathise with a dad that’s paying for his children?

I deal with divorces daily and anyone here claiming they know 10 guys who are being abused by the system because they pay thousands etc are not being honest or being lied too .
The fact is most men do not want 50/50, them there is a percentage who wants it but on their own terms like all the weekend so they don’t have to pay childcare during the week days so the mum gets to pay thousands montou only on childcare e or after school clubs . Do people even realise that maintenance should be for everything to do with the child from electricity and water they use to school trips , to food or clothes and clubs etc . Now tell me who in here thinks a child only cost £300 a month? Because we all know they cost wayyy more than that .
Men in the uk can get away with paying a pittance compared to other countries .
My husband pays for his child every month and in his agreement ( from another European country ) it states all extras are to be divided by 2 , so if he needs glasses he pays half , if he needs books he pays half , if he needs childcare he pays half , if he goes to uni he must still pay until my sp two son is 26 or stops studying . If he doesn’t pay then the equivalent to hmrc will charge him for it and if he still doesn’t pay they will go after his assets like car , house etc .
Is it annoying to have to spend large amounts of the budget on it every month? Yes , is it fair to, yes . Do you have to take it inti account before having more kids and a new life , yes of course.

The second one hasn’t given you the whole story.

CMS only calculate from the day the case is open. They cannot do so from a date before then.

HMRC really wouldn't be quick to find those submitting false tax returns or those who never register for tax returns in the first place. Like most govt depts, they only go after the easy targets which are usually generally law abiding people who make a mistake or can't afford the tax. They seldom go after the "harder" cases of the black economy people who are deliberately evading tax and illegally claiming benefits they're not entitled to - those who never declare they're "working" self employed and pretend they're unemployed or can't work.

@DaffyDuckz

I genuinely don’t understand why they can’t catch self employed people. Do all these parents fail to do a self assessment tax return?

Because HMRC are utterly inept and useless dealing with people who submit false SA tax returns or never register self employed in the first place. It's part of the reason why the "Black economy" costs the country billions every single year. HMRC have been as much use as a chocolate fireguard ever since Brown amalgamated the different tax departments and presided over the closure and centralisation of the tax offices. Back in the 80s and 90s, it was very common place for self employed and small businesses to have physical inspections of their "books" by tax inspectors, whether for VAT, PAYE or income tax. Since the noughties, barely any get inspected anymore. I run a small accountancy practice and have had less than a handful of tax investigations for my clients over the past 25 years!! It's an utter disgrace that HMRC are so incompetent. It's no surprise that the CSA can't use SA returns as a basis for child maintenance as a lot of the deadbeat Dads are probably either not declaring all their income ( so tax evasion as well as CMS evasion) or havn't even registered as self employed in the first place - and lots will also be illegally claiming unemployment and/or other benefits as well.

HMRC and CSA need to get a grip as the problem gets worse each year as official statistics (i.e. black economy) demonstrate.

Not disagreeing that they’re generally ineffective, but my cousin’s ex has owed her £9k for years. CMS took it out of his bank account and paid her just before Xmas.. She’s gobsmacked. She’s been waiting around 12 years.

Well, it’s just another shit, inept, inefficient government department isn’t it? Why are we even surprised.

also how is it that they can’t find self employed people to chase for maintenance but HMRC would soon find them if they hadn’t submitted a self assessment, accounts or had tax outstanding!

Fucking useless.

Exactly. My ex used to pay me directly then decided to stop when he moved in with his girlfriend and said he had to support her 5 dc. I stupidly waited a year before I went to CmS. They were very clear that they cannot chase for maintenance prior to them being involved.

the other uses to pay direct to his ex but she took him to cms and said he’d never paid so he now has a huge payment, which is being deducted from earnings. He’s struggling to survive.

I’ll take ‘things that never happened’ for £500 please!

There are so many people, women in particular whether that be relatives or new partners of these shitty men, who will readily believe the obviously bullshit stories that irresponsible fathers come out with. This is largely why the men don’t live in shame as they should.

I never said it was immediate. Yes he faught it but it’s a losing battle with an organisation tha is not fit for purpose and doesn’t do the right thing for either party.

rp’s can lie and get NRPs to pay when they’ve already paid. It’s a mistake but it happens

Why do you feel sorry for them?

Dad 1 obviously earns a very good wage and will have more than enough to spare for himself.
Dad 2 needs to provide evidence to the CMS that he has been paying his ex. Uploading screenshots of bank statements is very easy to do on the CMS portal.

In any case, just because there are some NRP dads who do pay what they should, that’s not what this thread is about, and frankly it’s irrelevant.

There's a range of methods they use, including only declaring a small part of their income and taking the rest as cash payments and paying their new partner a big salary whilst paying themselves next to nothing.

I'd just work out what half of the minimum cost of raising a child is and charge this amount. If you can't afford it then you need to wear a condom.

The other thing I'd change is the reductions, which don't make sense. If you have 1 overnight, you pay 6/7, 2 is 5/7, 3 is 4/7 and 3.5 is 0. I'd reduce by 1/3 for every overnight and just be very clear that children shouldn't be packing bags between homes, except for a few personal items, and that any time you have your child you should have everything they need.

I worked in payroll for a while. I remember one case where a CMS office wrote to us about an attachment of earnings, but the form was blank with no name or NI number. So i called the office and quoted the ref on the letter - it took me an hour and twenty minutes and three different people to tell me that due to a computer error the letter was generated wrongly - the case WAS legitimate but the letter reference was the internal reference not the one I needed, so they couldn’t talk to me about it.

They recommended I send a letter (at my company expense) to explain and ask for the correct letter.

I said, “look - I want this child to get the money their parent owes. You sent me the wrong letter - can’t you just send me the correct letter since I’ve literally just told you we will process it if you tell me who I’m supposed to deduct the money from”

The answer was that eventually the CMS would try writing to me again. They never did.

The whole thing stank of incompetence and inefficiency. I am not surprised the system is broken - the service is inept and just following rules with no brains behind it.