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

One of my passtimes during lockdown was going onto F4J type sites and watching all of the men complaining about how they became self employed to avoid paying maintenence by not declaring their proper income, but the government only compensated the wages they declared, not their actual earnings. It was a beautiful thing.

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?

if yes then why can’t the CMS join the dots - all the information is there!

If no- and none of these absent dads are paying tax then Surely that would be a magnificent way to catch tax fraud too: Mum says “DC’s dad is mysteriously living the life of Riley whilst apparently not earning any income.” CMS asks hmrc who does an investigation and reviews bank accounts and discovers he’s funding a lifestyle that doesn’t align with someone with no income.

Seems like they could kill two birds with one stone - clamp down on fraud and sort out CMS.

Can the second guy not just sent his bank statement to CMS?

That's interesting.

I once suggested that on here - unaware any country did this - and had many posts saying the man could die leaving the state money - I said well they could then claim againts his estate and assets - to be told that wasn't fair to the estates heirs.

IME it's often seems to be socially acceptable to pay nothing or very little for their kids.

Yes, they make mistakes from time to time, but @NotMajorTom 's friend was not immediately put on Collect and Pay for no reason at the outset of the claim, that just didn't happen.

If he as placed on Collect and Pay then he would have been informed why, and if it was a mistake he'd be fighting it.

Shocking.

I am going through this at the moment. My ex unexpectedly left in September, i filed for child support the day after. I got my first payment in January, it wasnt the full payment. I reported it, February came, got my second payment also not in full (doesnt bode well does it) I couldnt report that as they were still working on Januarys, so I rang them. They've changed the service to "collect and pay", meaning I have to pay extra as my ex refuses to pay the correct amount (only 4%, but still) and he pays an extra 20%. My next payment (bearing in my mind my last one was 1st February and not the entire payment) is 29th April... How does that make sense.

False….My partner was put on collect a pay… 6 months later it was removed and my partner was compensated for the error. The compensation did not cover anywhere near the extra he had to pay.

the ex lied, 6 months of fighting it. Ok we proved it but just another case of showing cms doesn’t have either side best interest at heart. Should never of happened, did the ex get in trouble…Nope

You feel sorry for a man who voluntarily pays over CMS minimum, and one who has made up a story in order to sound like a good dad?

Oh, and they will only deduct from earnings if the NRP did not pay as agreed by direct pay- as the RP, you can't just request that. You have to show that there are missed payments over a period of time.

CMS does not charge arrears from before the case was opened, so it would make no difference if they were told he'd never paid.

If it is one child it will be 12% of his pre-tax (after pension) income, reduced by 1/7 for every overnight he has the child per week.

If he is "struggling to survive" he needs to manage his money better.

I know two nrp dads

one pays over a grand a month despite having shared care (this is above the csa minimum). He also pays half of costs like uniforms, activities for kids etc. his ex doesn’t work and hasn’t for 16 years, so his kids are funded between him and the state.

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 sympathise with both.

Where did you find this data? Many thanks 🙏🏼

I'm married to an NRP and I totally think there are faults in the system for both parents.

However, I also think that parents who don't pay for their kids should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

It's very easy to avoid this by paying what you owe.

I've always got maintenance, worked part time and got some benefits. I've never had a holiday. Get a trim a few times a year.

I will add that in the days of the early internet when people were more likely to use names that could be decoded, I found him on some F4J-type message board giving it about ‘the system’. It was so painful. He abandoned us utterly and paid next to nothing. His seat in hell is reserved but why do these fathers not face the societal shame of having more children that they can’t or refuse to fund? The cost to the taxpayer is immense and it’s never a topic of political debate.

Some of the comments on the thread are despicable. I grew up as a child of a father who abandoned me and got away with paying next to nothing. He was wealthy. I really struggled, everything was hard. We didn’t have enough food. Nothing going on, no clubs, sports, hobbies, money for university, anything. Just pure survival and getting through the days. Mum was working FT and I had to look after myself. It was awful knowing he had a new family benefitting from a better life and the sense of rejection and injustice was incredibly painful, still is tbh.

Is failure to pay a criminal offence like it is in the US? If not, why not?

Possibly because of the stark contradiction between you saying you're not defending deadbeat dads and then immediately going on to defend deadbeat dads?

Um, yes I did. Do you struggle with reading?

This. If cm payments don’t helpto cut the welfare bill then most people won’t care. The benefits paid to the resident parent should be passed onto the absent / non paying parent. They should be able to take it from their bank account, put something against their passport to prevent foreign travel etc . They don’t get to walk away and let the state raise their children. It’s beyond a joke!

Nobody cared when the bulk of maintenance paid for children whose RP was on benefits was meant to go toward the benefits bill - that's why we have the current system!

At that time RP's on benefits were entitled to £20 of maintenance and the rest was owed to the Sec of State to go toward the benefit bill.

When the amount owed to the Sec of State got ridiculous it was decided that something must be done - so the government of the day decided that RP's could just keep the money they knew mostly wasn't being paid and it wouldn't affect benefits... No government has changed that since.

They can already take it from their bank account. CMS do not need to go to court to take money, they can just take it. But it's rare they do.

Oh please and how many single mums lost their lives due to lack of support , finances and sheer exhaustion . Most absent parents don’t even pay attention that they truly should , that should be 50% of all child costs including childcare

Not defending deadbeat dads. Just saying that if an 18yo bloke has a drunken shag at party with a girl he hasn't seen since and is then told he's going to be a father whether or not he likes it, he'll often drag his heels in paying because it's the only way he can push back.

Sorry……. Did you REALLY say you are “not defending deadbeat dads”…???!!!!!

Really?

FFS.

How many mums have to pay thousands in childcare that dads refuse to help with simply because they choose to only see their children on the weekends ? You clearly have no idea how much omen are so much more affected after a separation or divorce than men when it comes to finances .

The U.K. is a joke with regards to child maintenance , not oniy the actual way its calculated make nil sense the fact people can get away from siting so easily is awful

This. If cm payments don’t help
to cut the welfare bill then most people won’t care. The benefits paid to the resident parent should be passed onto the absent / non paying parent. They should be able to take it from their bank account, put something against their passport to prevent foreign travel etc . They don’t get to walk away and let the state raise their children. It’s beyond a joke!