Child benefit

[beatriceprior]

My ex is self employed.

He fiddles his races so pats himself the bare minimum. I have text messages of him admitting this is to avoid paying the correct amount of cms.

I opened a case with the cms.

They set the amount and I queried it as it didn't take into account dividends he paid himself.

Long story short, it's gone to court and I'm awaiting the final decision. They have requested his books for the last three years on the company he has now and the company he dissolved without submitting accounts.

The cms got it wrong. The court pointed this out to them at the hearing.

Once they advise what he should be paying, he can then contest it again after 12 months and cms will lower the payment again based on his "books".

Which he will tweak again as he has done so far.

I just feel like it's a waste of time. Can I even appeal again???

It's taken 12 months to get this far. Am I going to have to do this every other year?

He's provided no details about his earnings to the court to date and he won't provide any.

What can I do?

I feel like this whole system is a joke.

Races?! Sorry I mean his books. I'm angry typing 🤦🏽‍♀️

A friend has just had the outstanding debt from the father of her child wiped
Out by the csa as they can't obtain it. 38k.

Why are there not more laws protecting the resident parent and bringing these people who don't pay and fiddle their books to answer.

If you own your own company many accountants will advise paying yourself minimum wage and taking dividends and it's completely legal. He's not fiddling it. However it's crappy that so many non resident parents use it to negatively impact on their own dc. It sucks.

He took dividends and then I asked for a variation to include the dividends.

He earns triple what I do.

He hasn't took a dividend this year so far or last year.

He has opened companies and closed them and not submitted accounts. All
To avoid cms.

It's a loophole in the system (probably in the legislation) that needs to be addressed. It's perfectly legal for him to pay himself as he does - the issue for child maintenance is that not all his income has been taken into account.

The thing about dividends is that technically they are an annual declaration, and you don't know what you're getting until the company's year end. This isn't compatible for a monthly income based calculation. In reality, most "one man band" Ltd company owners pay themselves weekly and sort it out at the year end. Determining income using bank statements would be much more accurate but cost more to administer.

Government needs to catch up with reality on this one. It's the children who are losing out when NRPs do this sort of thing to avoid paying the resident parent, usually out of spite.

Personally I like the American model, where you can spend time in jail for not paying child support - I think the provisions in the UK are so lame that it's become almost voluntary to pay child support.

My ex gets a round of applause and a "isn't he wonderful!" for voluntarily paying CM to me, but I get no credit from society whatsoever for my financial contribution to DD's upbringing, which is way more than he pays. This cultural perception needs to shift.

I'm the same. I am just over to get any help and that's fine.

It just pisses me off so much that the non resident parent can basically stick two fingers up because our laws don't enforce anything properly
Or account for this.