CMS overtime

[Mummabear173]

Hi all
i am looking for a bit of support. I am a single mother who is now looking to claim Child maintenance for my baby. The father does overtime and additional hours/bank holidays, unsocial hours as he is in the police.
He is saying that his overtime/additional hours is not guaranteed so it won’t be taken into account but for as long as I have known him he has always done extra hours and overtime so would this not be classed as guaranteed as it’s been over 3 months? I’ve had a look online and it says overtime is included but doesn’t mention anything about if it’s not guaranteed. I was told by someone that they look at his earnings for the previous/current tax year so that would reflect more than his basic pay.
any help would be massively appreciated. Thank you!

Hi OP,

In my experience the way that HMRC reports earnings is on total earnings from the previous year, identical to the earnings that you get on your end of the year P60.

So if he earned £3.5k overtime in 2022-2023 that would have been considered for this years maintenance calculation.

If he doesn't get as much overtime opportunity in 2024 then next year the maintenance will go down.

The good news for you is that although it's not guaranteed, there's no squirreling away of funds in the way that some ltd company owners or sole traders can do.

Yeah it's prior year earnings.

The only alteration as I understand it is if the pay will increase or decrease by 25% or more then the person paying maintenance can ask for an adjustment. If its an increase they have to declare or will end up with arrears.

Can you agree an amount without involving the cms.