Child maintenance System has no regard for the fathers family

[Lsimms97]

I’m absolutely in shock at how many posts I am reading from women slating their children’s fathers who are refusing to pay maintenance through CMS. I am a woman and if I ever break up with my husband, I would never ever put in a CMS claim because I respect him. I understand that sometimes there are deadbeat fathers and CMS is the only option, but for loving fathers who actually see their children, please do not use CMS! My husband’s ex, who has a drug problem, is unemployed and takes up drug habits whilst my stepchild is at school all day, has decided that after years of a family based arrangement, that she would like to put in a CMS claim, in which she has lied about the existence of my children and the amount of nights we looks after my step child for. CMS are being extremely difficult about this and forcing us to go through tribunal courts to resolve the incorrect information whilst at the same time they are taking incorrect payments from us which is everything we have after paying rent. The result is that we are now left struggling to feed and clothe two toddlers. I love my stepchild and would never see them go without, we are a huge part in their life and have never refused to pay for school uniforms, lunch money, top ups, holidays etc, clothes, haircuts...anything which is needed! But the reality is my stepchild is walking around in a pair of £200 trainers, has all of the latest gadgets etc and we have nothing left for our children. His ex has even sent us a picture of a takeaway and said ‘cheers’ because she is getting so much money and it does not take that much money to raise one child. Do you not also think that as mothers, you should also contribute to the child’s upbringing? CMS payments mean that fathers pay for everything even though it takes two to tango. My poor husband has Had his life ruined by this woman constantly using the child as a weapon and now she’s found a new way to get to him. The sad reality is he is going to have to quit his job or we lose our home. I also work part time by the way, but we cannot cover the unrealistic payments and still support our children. CMS do not care about this, I have cried down the phone to them and they literally couldn’t care less.so please women, if you have any respect for your ex, please seek a family based arrangement. So many men have committed suicide over this, and been left in poverty. It isn’t fair. The CMS are awful!

Quitting work to avoid CMS is a total Deadbeat Dad move.

Maybe he should try taking responsibility for his child and have her 50/50 that way he pays nothing.
Probably too late now but why a caring loving father did not go for shared residency is confusing to me.

I find the cms calculation to be quite fair. I have 2 children & ex earns on paper 11k so pay 150 a month in total. And that’s with no overnight stays. All me and funnily enough and yes I pay well over 150 a month to raise my kids Jesus shopping is 70 a week, then we have rent, council tax, water, WiFi, gas & electric. You do agree the children need a home food heating and lighting right?

I think CMS are ridiculously skewed towards NRP.
They don’t take even close to what it costs to raise a child.

It sounds from your posts like you are in a difficult position and I am sorry for that, but I think you are in the minority and there are so many single RPs who have been screwed over by this system that you will have put a LOT of Noses out of joint with your post.

Diddums

Your DH is a Dick if he’s left his kid with a drug addict.

Which I doubt she is.

Cms payments mean that Fathers pay for everything, even though it takes two to Tango

Is this your idea of a sick joke?.
My ex was 'forced' to pay just under £50 per week maintenance for our dc's. And yet you have the audacity to have a go at women like me for 'daring to expect our ex's to help towards their children's upbringing?
Go forth and multiply.

Quitting work to avoid CMS is a total Deadbeat Dad move

I agree. Would have thought Law has a mechanism for dealing with such situation? However, if the NRP has no assets what could Law do? Can't extract blood from a stone.

Sorry, but this is utter bullshit

Another ace comment by Collaborate.

CM is based on % of NRP Gross Weekly Income. The % varies depending on the number of children and if NRP earns more than 800/week up to a maximum of 3,000/week. Adjustments are made based on the number of nights children stay with NRP. Basically CM is reduced by one seventh for each night of the week children stay with NRP. Other adjustments can be made too such as Travel Costs to see Children or paying for special needs.

The more the NRP earns the more the RP will receive. Whatever RP receives they will have to stretch it out as necessary. Unrealistic to expect NRP to hand over every penny they earn. After all they have to be able to survive as well.

However, to all the Single Mothers on MN I would never dispute that some NRP make their goal in life to avoid CM.

Some of my colleagues have gone self employed, or operate through Ltd Companies or work outside the UK in attempt to frustrate the CMS. Some even work in dangerous places that do not have a REMO agreement with the UK.

Quitting work to avoid CMS is a total Deadbeat Dad move

It sure is. I didn’t realise not getting maintenance was so unusual until I came on here. Now, if XH offered, I’d tell him to shove it because I’ve managed for 10 years without a jot of input from him (financial or otherwise!) and DS1 thankfully hasn’t gone without.

This is such b.s. they don't dock your wages these days unless your refusing to pay then it takes months to sort out this did not happen overnight

I don't believe a word of it

I’ve managed for 10 years without a jot of input from him (financial or otherwise!) and DS1 thankfully hasn’t gone without

Well done for being able to manage. However, I think many single mothers might say you have short changed yourself. As parent your Ex should be contributing towards cost of DS.

they don't dock your wages these days unless your refusing to pay then it takes months to sort out this did not happen overnight

True and if NRP is self employed or works through a limited company or outside the UK it can take very long time to sort.

I’d suggest your husband seeks legal advise with regards to becoming the resident parent. If what you are saying is true the child would have a more stable upbringing and you wouldn’t be so out of pocket. It sounds like that may suit you more. Has he seeked legal advise yet? I know I couldn’t rest at night knowing my child lived with a drug addict who palmed him off to various people.
If what you are saying is true with regards to having the child 50% of the time ( which I’m assuming may have had the financial issue factored in) it’s clear that no maintenance would really be due.
However given the current amount payable it will only ever be a small percentage of his salary. So why is that leaving you so upset?

However, if the NRP has no assets what could Law do? Can't extract blood from a stone.

It should be the same process and consequences as NRP not paying Council Tax or Income Tax.

Personally I think that they should change the CMS process so government pays RP a percentage of RP's wage and the government pursues the NRP for the money. It's unacceptable that so many RP get no money for months while CMS allegedly pursue non-payers. There must be people responsible for pursuing tax evaders already.

Absolutely agree with cats and dogs on this.. The amount of unpaid arrears is disgraceful and there is no political will to address it. If the principle stood that the child gets what the NRP owes and then the NRP owes the money to HMRC I bet they'd sudden get a whole lot more efficient at collecting it.

It should be the same process and consequences as NRP not paying Council Tax or Income Tax

Can't see it happening as Government is after the Big Players and Corporations that avoid Billions in Tax. Government provides Child Benefit and Child Tax Credits to single parents. So they may argue they are doing their part anyway? CMS is a Government Department who are responsible for collecting data from HMRC to calculate the amount of CM that NRP should pay.

Difficulty seems to be the numerous Loopholes that exist such as; NRP goes Self Employed, or works through a Ltd Company to control what they receive. Some even work outside the UK to make it more difficult for CMS.

if their children’s fathers are decent enough to stick around and be amicable.

This^is very telling.

MissedTheBoatAgain I tried several times. He found every fucking loophole going and laughed in my face about it. It was the old system, I’ve never tried through CMS.

YeTalkShiteHen will his debt be written off if you don't transfer to cms? It might be worth you doing so if there is a possibility they eventually successfully prosecute him.

I’ve never tried through CMS

Apparently it is less favourable to RP's than the previous CSA. Variations based on Lifestyle and Assets are no longer allowed. So it is possible for a NRP to be asset rich, but income poor. RP gets CM based on income only.

There was a case last year where father had over 5 million in Properties, but his only income was state pension. Outcome was that mother received 7 pounds per week in CM. Even the Judge (Mostyn who is on of the leading people in Family Law) stated that this particular case proved the Asset Variation should not have been removed in the 2012 CMS Scheme.

My exp wife absolutely hates that they have to pay anything for my son. They refuse to pay a single penny outside of the maintenance, which is a very small amount. (We didn’t go through cms it’s our arrangement) This includes me having to take my son here there any everywhere for them because they won’t accept covering any travel related costs. It’s an ongoing battle, they won’t take him on holiday with them unless I cover the cost, my son hates her. However he adores his dad so I let him make the choice as to when he wants to see them and try to be as civil and as accommodating as I can. She told my son that if she had her way she wouldn’t pay me anything because why should she pay for a child that isn’t hers . When they first got together he stopped paying anything at all because I didn’t want my son to be with her so they chose no contact, which meant she felt that they shouldn’t pay anything at all. I very nearly lost everything.

Op I don’t think you have a leg to stand on. You might not like it but it’s kinda tough, you chose to be with someone that had a child, which means they have a legal obligation to help bring that child up. If the home situation is that bad then go for custody, but the costs for the child will have to be paid for by someone, and if dc mum isn’t working then you won’t receive much from her. Either way, there will still be a cost incurred for your family. The cms calculator decides what is the bare minimum, your husband must at least meet that, I think you need to adjust finances to cater for it.

I find it hard to believe that some people actually believe their own bullshit.

As the resident parent, why the hell would you twat about trying to come to an 'informal' arrangement that will be changed every two minutes, when the CMS will do it all for you and go someway to enforcing the payments, if it comes to that?

The CMS amount is the bare bloody minimum and certainly won't cover 50% of what it takes to raise a child.

Hollow laughing at the thought that the OP's other half might possibly have contributed more if there is this much angst about coughing up the bare minimum!

A couple of comments on here to the effect that CMS maintenance doesn't cover the cost of raising a child. Thought I'd better chip in:

1. Who is to say what it costs to cover a child? According to research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, the cost of raising a child from birth until the age of 21 is £230,000. Money Supermarket put it at £79,176 to raise a boy to 18 and £108,884 for a girl. If you ask the state, someone out of work claiming Income Based JSA would get an extra £84.72 pwk in CTC and CBen. So that's £4405 a year, which is around the annual cost of a boy in the Moneysupermarket figures.

1. The claim that absent parents should pay more as a percentage is one that appears attractive to the receiver, but the opposite to the payer. For one child the payment is 15% (roughly) of the NRP's net income.

1. According to the Modern Families Index in 2014 more than 68% of couple families had both parents working. the norm therefore seems to be that both parents will contribute economically to the household and the children.

1. The state also steps in. For every child there will be child benefit of just over £1000 pa. Someone working 35 hours a week on national minimum wage would get, if they had one child, £114.64 a week, so £5,961.28 a year, in child and working tax credits and child benefit. If they didn't have a child they would get no tax credits on this income.

1. An NRP earning national min wage working 35 hours a week would have to pay £33 a week for one child. This would be 13% of their net weekly wage after tax and NI.

1. Assuming the PWC earns the same, it is not unreasonable to expect them to contribute the same as the NRP, so £33 a week.

1. This would mean, that to pay for the one child, the state would make available £5961 a year. NRP would pay £1716 and so would the PWC. Total set aside to pay for that one child would therefore be £9393 a year.

1. Over 18 years this amounts to £169,074, and over 21 years £197,253. This is very close to the figure given by the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

1. It therefore seems that for low income families the state provides much of the cost of raising the child. The parents between them contribute less than half.

10. It follows that the suspicion that CMS assessments are too low, because they do not cover the cost of raising a child, fail to appreciate not just the need to maintain two households, the fairness that each working parent shares some of the financial burden, and the fact that the cost of raising a child is one that the state is willing to share, particularly for low income families.

To Collaborate

Pleased that someone from the Legal Profession has chipped in. My ex moans to her friends and family that what I pay in CM does not cover cost of child, but omits that; child benefit, child tax credits and working tax credits total almost £700 per month in hand. More than my father’s NHS pension after 40 years of service!. Never tells anyone that I pay SM as well.

As you correctly point out both parents are responsible for contributing to cost of raising child. However, I would not dispute that some NRP will do anything to evade paying maintenance and there seems to be many loopholes that NRP can use to reduce or even eliminate maintenance altogether.

Changes I think should take place are:

Abolish the plus or minus 25% change in gross income before CM can be re-assessed as it can penalise both parents.

CMS to add up all income listed on HMRC regardless of earned or unearned. The need to request Variation for unearned seems pointless when information is already on the HMRC Tax Return.

Asset variation to be reinstated, but only if NRP has more than one property. Never understood the nominal 8% assumed income on assets. If someone only has one property where was the 8% meant to come from? Can’t rent out house and live in it at same time. Even on a second property that is rented out 8% would be hard to achieve now that government has changed rules on being able to claim interest on buy to let loans.

Under the 2012 CMS scheme. NRP can be asset rich, but income poor. So RP may receive very little in Maintenance even though NRP is a wealthy person.

CMS do not ascribe a notional income to the property that is the main residence.

Excellent post Collaborate.