Angry about CM

[PeriPipkin82]

My ex & I separated 13 months ago, we weren’t married & have 1 child together. I have asked him to sort maintenance privately which he was fine with & paid £300 a month however it was sporadic so I thought it best to go through official lines so CMS..he is a Director of a a Ltd company & draws down no dividends, wages or shares so now DWP have told me that he can pay zero. I asked DWP to check his Ltd company as he earns a lot of money but because there is no individual tax payment they cannot pursue it as a Ltd company is an individual tax entity so cannot do anything about it. I explained this to him & he said oh well maybe you should have been happy before..can I do anything?

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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 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.

What do you mean literally nothing you can do? They've said the CMS have a financial investigation unit. Go to them

The legalities are the important bit. If you don't want to pursue them then fine but they are there.

If you take money from a company that’s a salary Op. this all sounds like bollocks. Unless he’s taking cash in hand? Which is also illegal.

Whatever HMRC can sort out with him is irrelevant. He was not unreasonable until I mentioned CMS..I will talk to him. Our relationship isn’t that bad that I can’t & he see’s his DD regularly it’s just that I earn considerably less than him

Look into making a claim under Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989 (google it for a basic outline - some solicitors pages setting it out also offer initial free legal advice). You would argue his lifestyle is not consistent with his declared income.

If you can afford to instruct a solicitor to send a letter and suggesting mediation first, do so. It will show you are serious and if his finances are as dodgy as they sound he might come to a settlement before he has to disclose all his financial information to the Court.

I can get a solicitor but would that cost me more than what the DC would get? If so no point

Whatever HMRC "sort out" with him, is what CMS calculate his maintenance on, so it's not irrelevant.

If he's hiding his income by either not declaring at all, or by diverting it through another person then you need CMS to do a variation.

He's got arsey and doesn't want you to go through CMS because he knows what he's given you historically is far less than what the CMS would have been, and will be going forward. Also he can't just tell them "you aren't getting anything this month". Well. He can, but then it gets added to his arrears balance so all he can do is postpone paying it. Where as you haven't got any personal jurisdiction over him, and he can just not pay a penny without any recourse. And he likes that.

What did you want from this thread OP - you've had posters giving you really helpful insight into how to proceed with CMS and you're just giving it Alan Partridge shrugs.

His payments were sporadic before, what on earth makes you think he'll come good now?

I just wondered if anyone else had been in same position. No problem I’ll F off now sorry

We have.

We've told you what to do.

You shrug it off and look for a different answer. There isn't one.

I too, can't work out why you started your thread if you aren't going to take the very basics on board or act on them.

OP, one more thing you could try on the CMS front (if you are on good terms with him) is just try to put it to him that going through CMS is not a threat or a weapon, just an admin tool to keep payments regular and impersonal. My ex took it very negatively when I offered to open the case if he would prefer not to share his payslips with me. I was genuinly trying to do a positive thing but he saw it as me presenting an ultimatum. Explain that you need regular payments so you can budget x,y,z FOR YOUR CHILD- surely as a business owner he can appreciate that and would not want to see little Betty going without. At least you can say you tried. Assuming it doesn;t work, please do go and get advice along the lines of what PP have suggested.

OP, there are really knowledgeable posters taking time to give you detailed advice. I appreciate it's complicated, but it's worth pursuing for your children since your ex-partner is being a dick.

It doesn’t matter whether anyone has been in the same position. I expect many women have, whether they have read your thread or not, who knows, but it doesn’t matter anyway.

I don’t understand what you mean by “Whatever HMRC sort out with him is irrelevant”.

The first step in all of this is getting to the bottom of the accounts, particularly how is he extracting money and how much money. HMRC will be very interested in this and if he is doing something incorrectly, then they will soon put him right. This will help greatly with your CM assessment.

I am an accountant of thirty years but I don’t know much about CM assessments, but somebody has mentioned a Financial Investigation. You need to get the ball rolling on this.

I wasn’t trying to be smart/disrespectful, dismissive I just meant I know what is going on with him but not sure how to address it. I’m sure things are not right financially but that isn’t for me to get myself involved in too deeply. The powers that be won’t involve themselves either. Never mind it’s really not important

You just need to follow the advice already given.
Read it then act on it!

Is this the same OP who already made another thread on CMS?

Nothing can be done.

there you go OP, the answer you clearly want.

I'm going to say this one more time. Real slow.

The. Financial. Investigation. Unit. Are. The. Powers. That. Be.

My ex pretended he didn't live in the country.

CMS chimps went "dunno what to tell you really, we have to go on what he says"

HMRC went "dunno what to say really, he isn't filling in any tax returns"

I shouted at both agencies til I was blue in the face that I could send them a picture of him getting into his very English car, outside his very English house, in England, every day. But apparently that wasn't evidence.

I called my MP, as you can imagine, fuming.

She made one call. The FIU were involved. They froze his accounts. Went through every bit of income he had diverted. I now have a current CMS payment plan of £734 a month and arrears of £30k+ generated purely from the involvement of the FIU.

HMRC are still scratching their arses as to why he hasn't filled in a tax return.

OP, if you are still going to sit playing "baffled" what to do when so many have spelled out exactly what your options are, then there's little point of this thread.