to not split the discount?

[schoolsaving]

Regular but NC as outing.

DS currently attends private school and fees split 50:50 with XH amicably but specific line 'school fees to be split 50:50' is in financial order. No maintenance paid as 50:50 care and clean break split with us i.e. no further claim on each other. Further relevant info is that since split I've reduced working hours and covered school holidays and XH has continued to work FT.

I've got a new full time job which includes 50% discount on school fees. Which of the below scenarios do you think is fairest?

A: fee discount reduces both our share and we split the cost of additional holiday childcare
B: fee discount reduces my share to nil and I pick up cost of additional holiday childcare
C: fee discount reduces my share to nil and we split additional holiday childcare

Thanks!

Sounds like it is part of your salary to me. It's a way of getting more for less tax isn't it?

I doubt this. It's more likely a bonus to those who have DS. Otherwise they would have to pay staff members who don't have kids at the school more money.

If the order says the fees are split 50/50 then that is what you have to do, i.e. you split the discount. If that produces an inequitable result because you now have the additional costs of childcare, you need to apply to court to vary the order.

If you don't do so, you could find yourself in the unpleasant position of having to pay to your ex his half of the 50% discount as and when he finds out about it AND you would face difficulties in getting him to cover half of the costs of additional holiday childcare retrospectively, if the existing order does not provide for him to do so.

Apply now to vary the order to reflect the circumstances as they now are.

Would you get paid more if you did exactly the same roll but didn't have a child at the school?

C

He's yr ex husband.you owe him nothing..your half is the discount.he pays his.no way would he give you half if he got the discount

ifnyou had a colleague with no children would they be paid more instead of having a fee reduction? Or a different perk? If not then you should both benefit from the fee reduction. I think fairest would be either you both pay the remaining fees 50/50 and he pays all childcare or you just pay all childcare.
IMHO if it could cause problems then having a friendly parenting relationship is worth more and more important than a few thousand a year extra.

A, as this is according to the court order.

I think you need legal advice if you want to consider anything else, and may well need the order amended. For the sake of peace and harmony A is the best route.

So, when your child leaves school, (supposing you stay in the same job,) your salary will increase.
Or, if you didn't have a child in that school, you would not be offered X part of your salary in a discount. You couldn't use it.
You are earning the salary but being paid part by cheque at the end of the month & part with a discount coupon on the school fees.
You have will have worked to the value of both parts.
Why would XH get the benefit of your work hours?
(I would ask the bursar for a separate school bills what you do with your salary is your business)

Why should he know? Ask the school to bill him his half, with no mention of your half and Bill you your half. Yours will say, fees due: X amount due, minus benefit, equals zero.

He need never know. Surely parents are often billed separately?

I think that advising the OP to say nothing about the discounted fees is very bad advice indeed. If he finds out then she could be landed with a large bill. She needs to seek legal advice re how the discount is to be applied.

XH knows about the discount. I wouldn't keep it a secret and try and stiff him! For those posters that mentioned how would I feel if he had it then I couldn't bring myself to ask him to share the discount (doing holiday childcare for years without asking for a contribution shows what kind of a person I am) - I'm not a 'grabby dick' - thanks for that

I guess it's galling that it would save him a few hundred pounds a month and I have no say in making him spend/save that for/on DS - he didn't earn it and essentially he can use it on whatever he likes. Does that seem fair?

I think it's because you've worded it as a discount. It's not a discount, it's part of your salary. So basically you earn your salary and that portion of it pays your half.

I'm pretty sure the courts would see it that way too.

It's a perk of your job, not his. You don't have to share it with him. Say the fees are £12,000 a year - he contributes £6000 and so do you. Where it comes from is neither of your business. If your discount covers your entire half, it's covered, that's all he needs to worry about.

It's not part of your salary if the only thing is that you're being paid less than you would be if you did the same thing in a different place, that happened all over the workforce.

Personally, I think it would be really petty not to share the discount. As for childcare, you each pay for it on your allocated days if needed, but if you want to see your son a bit more in the holidays and save your ex some money at the same time, then everyone's a winner.

If everything has been amicable with the XH so far then you should talk to him. He may agree that you use the discount to pay your half.

If he doesn't agree then legal advice or arbitration should be the next step.

If you are worried that he's going to find out about it, ask yourself; are you worried that you are doing the wrong thing, or that he will react badly to you doing the right thing?

Would he share the discount if he had it? If he had the discount and used it to pay his 50% without telling you, how would you feel?

Having an amicable relationship with your XH is going to be better for your DS than an antagonistic one.

Looking after your own child isn't like doing holiday childcare for someone else! Why would you ever ask for a contribution to that?

And presumably your ex does earn his own money, and there's nothing here to suggest he isn't a good dad, so you probably don't need to worry about him spending his own money on whatever he likes.

The holiday care and school fees are two separate issues. And I don't think legally they can be tit for tat as it were. I absolutely agree that he should have been paying towards holiday care.

C. It's part of your package, like PPs have pointed out it's like a company car/bonuses which I doubt your ex would share with you. And given that he was happy to take his assets he gained previous to your marriage then it's only fair that you keep your assets you've gained since your marriage.

This sounds like the school have reduced their normal fees for children of staff. I may be wrong but I think that this could actually be tax free as the "cost to the employer" of providing a school place isn't actually the fees they charge commercially but the cost of providing the place itself- eg the paper, textbooks etc. As these would have to be bought anyway, there is no actual cost to the school in providing the place therefore no benefit to tax (see Pepper v Hart). Commercially they have obv decided not to provide the place totally for free.... but possibly it's a tax efficient way of rewarding staff. Long winded way of saying, it's completely linked to your employment.

Could you just put the money you're saving away for DS's university?

I would say A. To me that is the fair, amicable path.

You should split the discount with him, anything less is an absolute piss take on your part and makes you a bit grabby.

Not giving 50 percent of a benefit you earn through your job to your ex is considered grabby! and a piss take!

OP, this is part of your compensation package. It isn't a discount. It is something your employer is giving YOU - not random ex husbands - to make you stay in the job and perform at a high level.

What WeepingWillow said:

C) the discount is part of your remuneration package. If this benefit was not offered they'd presumably need to offer higher salaries

Be careful "amicable" doesn't turn into "Sure, wipe your feet on me! And would you like a cut off my private pension too?"

I bet that if this was a perk (asset) of his job he would be stunned if you approached him about taking half of it!

I would just state that you calculated your ability to take the job financially because it meant your 50% of the fees is covered...