Child maintenance.

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When a case is set up with CMS, does the paying parent have to prove their wage or is what they say taken at face value?

They’ll have to prove it. Easy if they are PAYE, easily fiddled if they are self employed however.

Yep this. It’s really simple if PAYE, you can get that info very easily through HMRC, but self employed is a different story!

CMS contact HMRC direct & look at PAYE / latest tax return if self employed. It provides real time values.

The ‘payer’ of the CMS has no input.

So any salary declared is checked by CMS? It's PAYE and the salary declared is for a very googleable profession that is in bands ( not NHS) the figure is about 10k out.

Do they have salary deductions? Or sacrifices?

I think cms is based on how much money they have after tax, pension rather than before. I maybe wrong but this could explain the difference you are seeing.

I can't see what would result in a 10k annual reduction from the stated salary online.
Do they check or just take the payers word?

If it matches the info HMRC has then its accepted

It’s salary, but after any deductions, as PP have said.

It’s not unheard of for people to plough money into pension to reduce cms liability.

Pension.

Yeah that's what I'm asking, does HMRC check?

As others have said, it’s pension.

cms is paid on salary before tax, but after deductions so pension payments come off