Correct Child Maintenance Yes-or-No Poll. Just trying to find out how often it is not paid.

[Maelstrom]

My ex is paying the correct child maintenance for the income he reported, which it is significantly lower than what he actually earns but I don't have the will or inclination to go through months of abuse to try to get the extra pounds DS would get if his father's real income was used for the calculation.

I know that at some point, the government had plans to enforce a better calculation of child maintenance by using NRP's income as reported to Inland Revenue, rather than trusting the good will of parents to be honest about their income.

So, I am wondering if my case is in the minority or if there are enough resident parents out there experiencing the same problem. If this is a more common problem than it should be, I wonder if there is potential for it to become one of the "Mumsnet causes" (that is asking for Child Maintenance to be calculated according to income reported to IR)

So the questions are:

1. Do you get the correct Child Maintenance according to CSA calculation?
2. Would it be better/easier/fairer/less damaging if the CSA used IR records to automatically calculate child maintenance?

1. No! He is playing the system, just like he always did.

1. Yes. If the Govt are able to take out a percentage of my wages to pay student loans, they could take a percentage for child maintenance from NRP's.

1. Nope. It's a combination of my ex bouncing between employment and benefits every few months which is faster than the CSA can keep up with, and general bureaucratic incompetence on the part of the CSA.

1. Maybe. The big problem with IR records is that they work historically. Any changes can take a long time to filter through. You could easily end up with the same kind of issues that plague CTC and WTC where overpayments and underpayments are almost inevitable.

Hahahahahahahaha

Never had a penny so I can't answer either question.
Last letter I had said they were taking him to court and I should hear the outcome in 6 weeks.

That was 6 months ago. Ds is now 9.

I'm not holding my breath.

what I don't understand is why (in a normal PAYE situation) they don't just inform the employer of the % to deduct - so that the RP gets the correct % of whatever the NRP earns.

I know that there are lots of situations where this won't work (because there is significant other income, because the NRP is self employed, employed by their own limited company etc) but surely in the vast majority of cases it would work - and then you would just have to sort out the remainder, instead of sorting out all of them.

The political will isn't there to sort out child maintenance. If the gov can collect council tax payments, student loans, VAT (self- employed peeps KNOW not to mess with the VAT man!) they could if the genuine will was there collect maintenance. A bit of posturing by our leaders every few years is just hot air, and then things go back to normal - kids welfare not a priority.

I'm sick of hearing excuses from politicians on this issue. The sad case of Sara Keys v Cecil Parkinson (Sara was legally gagged from speaking out about the abysmal treatment of her child by the Dad) shows just how long the issue of non-responsibility on the part of NRP has been going on. It also shows at what societal levels it's considered acceptable not to support your children.

The CSA has had the powers needed to collect maintenaince, up to and including passport confiscation, driving licence confiscation, baliffs and even the right to impose prison terms since at least CSAii which is at least a decade old.

Long term there is light on the horizon as a few children have sued the CSA themselves once they've turned 18 for their wrecked childhoods caused by the CSA's incompetance. Those that have done so, have so far won their cases.

We live in a culture that thinks it's OK not to support your offspring and that it's acceptable to expect others to bear the burden for you. Until that changes, and at the highest levels - all the legislation in the world won't change matters.

1. My ex gave me an amount less than he should have. Like you I couldn't cope with pushing for more. When I did he suddenly lost his job... (familiar tale on this topic)
2. Yes, how simple it could be if tax and c.m. were a Percentage!! Deducted monthly!! Now why can't the government sort that I wonder?

XH pays £80 per month over the CSA calculation so it doesn't effect us how it is calculated.

However he paid less than he should for his previous DC and it would have been better (for wife no1 and wife no3) to have an IR related CSA calculation.

1. No, I am lucky if I get a payment (usually less than £100) every 2 years, I discovered that some payments had been 'lost' by the CSA and I only recovered one of these payments after I featured in a full page article in my local newspaper. Many years ago they were collecting a fiver a week from XH and posting giros for this amount to another part of the country (200 miles away). I was told I couldn't get another payment as I couldn't prove the giros had not been cashed. Sigh.
2. Yes it probably would be easier, though don't hold your breath as my XH was working for the DWP as a manager and they STILL couldn't collect any CSA payments from him.

1. I don't know the amount my ex earns but I used the maintenance calculator and guessed how much I thought he would earn in his position and it seemed about right but I had to wait a year before CSA took any money from him to begin with.

1. I think it would be much fairer if the CSA used IR records but I agree with bochead and have little hope of anything changing.

1. No, I receive nothing.
2. Wouldn't make alot of difference tbh, XP changes his jobs so often, by the time CSA had the info from IR, it's already out of date.

My idea is to put the responsibility for paying onto the NRP's and impose severe sanctions/consequences if they don't pay up. This would cut the CSA's load down drastically imo.
If a NRP cannot prove he has paid for his DC in a certain time frame (I think at least every month.) then the RP should be able to make a telephone call to CSA who then enforce sanctions/consequences.

I have 2 XP's.One pays the correct amount, one pays nothing. Inland Revenue records would not help me with the one who pays nothing as I'm 99% certain he does not declare any of his income for tax.

bochead - I think you've hit the nail on the head.
There just isn't the will in government to get this sorted. It's a massive injustice in our society.So many men not facing up to their responsibility, so many single parent families struggling because of it and the situation looks set to become worse.

haha!!! i ahve court orders and ge has now been to CSA - I get sweet FA and will be abck to court next month - we go every 6 weeks. he owes me nearly £10,000 in arrears. he lies, he refuses t speak to the kids and blames me. The courts aren't interested and neither is the governement. When I last aske a jusge how he expcted me to feed the kids and house, clothe them etc on £260 wages and £300 CTC and £130 CB he just said it wasn't relevant how I fed/clothed/housed the DC and 'stayed' the application to vary the court order - so I travelled 400 miles and spent £150 for nothing to happen. He is out spending and shopping every weekend and his GF/OW is too - 2 full time salaries and he keeps forgetting to provide evidence to the court... nothing is ever done!

I get nothing at all from exh. Quite a lot of people on MN know my backstory - he just buggered off to Thailand 3 years ago. He pays nothing for our our ds or his two daughters (now 11 and 13) by his exp either.

I think about it all the time a bit and I agree that there should be stronger sanctions against fathers who simply don't pay. My exH is easily traceable on the internet and if there was any will to bring such men to book, it would really be quite easy to do so.

But I agree the will isn't there. It is just too big a problem I suppose.

Thank bloody god for tax credits, but even with them and CHB I just don't earn enough and am overdrawn all the time. It's constant fire-fighting. It's draining, depressing and frightens me shitless.

I feel so very strongly about it - the whole issue of fathers just being able to walk/run away or lie their way out of paying...Not on my own account but for my poor son growing up and coming to realise that not only did his father abandon him totally but he didn't give a shit whether he ate/had shoes or not. These men are a bloody menace and should face much more severe consequences.

It wont happen though.

unlikely - that is such an awful story

I sometimes wish we hadn't progressed so far in the 'everything is acceptable, live the life you choose' stuff. Back in the old days any man who walked out on his kids and left them potless would've been a pariah. That kind of moral debt won;t be paid in money - he'll get in back in other ways.

Well, I wopnder if actually the tax credits is one of the contributing factors to child maintenance not being properly enforced.

My ex said " the government will take care of you both" and certainly it has. I am forever grateful for the tax credits as we heavily depend on them to get to the end of the month. But should the government be paying the bill to ensure my son and I survive in a few hundred punds when my ex's income is near to the 6 figure mark?

Obviously I am not advocating for tax credits to be removed, DS and I would be begging on the street, but my ex has often sneaked out of responsibility by claiming I get tax credits, fortunately by now, he has stopped demanding that I give him half of the TC.

Again another CSA thing, which I can help with :)

This SHOULD happen

1. you call and make a claim
2. we contact the NRP and confirm who they are
3. we ask if they're employed or not (which can be checked)
4. we ask for wage slips
5. calculation is done using wage slips.

now, if the NRP doesn't supply wage slips, we then go to the employer for details, they get faxed a slip, they send it back within a week (this is rare)

We post it off it comes back in 2 months (more often than not)

more problems - the NRP doesn't admit they work and we have to go via HMRC, this can take 2/3 months.
even though it's meant to take 4 days.

then we have to collect the money from them, they get a month to do this, and then DEO is done, this takes another month.

So as you can see it's a rotten system, but when it works it works OKAY but the system has so many issues that faults on cases happen, parents cant be found, HMRC takes ages to get back to you.

I totally agree with Maristella's post above

'1. No! He is playing the system, just like he always did.

1. Yes. If the Govt are able to take out a percentage of my wages to pay student loans, they could take a percentage for child maintenance from NRP's.'

Thanks for your message. I understand the efforts of CSA, but considering that many NRP refuse to provide the real information even when they are sworn at court, in front of a judge and cornered by a barrister I wonder if it would be better to skip all those months of waiting and go straight to the HMRC.

Because at the end of the day, it is not only about the long wait before the NRP decides to present the real information, but also about the NRP and RP needing to go back and forth to the CSA to have the information corrected, as ill will is created between the parties, which unfortunately ends up, sooner or later, affecting the children.

In my case, putting a toe out of line, like daring to ask the CSA to check on his other income, could be enough to launch another legal battle that would cost far more thanwhile he gets away with everything.

give it a go but I think the fundamental problem is that society seem to accept these fathers' actions.

People in general might give you lip service and say 'that's not right' but would they step in for you? How many of your friends or family have ever spoken to the man in question and said 'what you're doing is not right'. How often have you seen them shamed by their social circle for behaving this way? Never. Because I don't think society itself actually gives a toss, unless you are a single parent yourself.

They still have their drinking buddies, women will still get together with them and have more children with them, they don't get shunned or shamed in any way whatsover. where as nine times out of ten the women left holding the babe are 'bitches' or difficult in some way because we are asking for their contribution.

The truth is people in a relationship think we have caused this to happen in some way, and the men have some of the blame removed from them because of it. Unless you're a single parent yourself you just will not get it. And single parents who's ex's don't pay up or lie or are abusive are one of the most vunerable sections of society, and they don't get to change the rules.

That is the crux of the problem.

Jmcwitch, I think this is the way it works for most PAYE NRP and therefore the correct amount is being deducted. If a NRP is self employed it works in the same way - but the NRP has to declare a tax return. SE has some tax advantages (as you can claim expenses for work unlike PAYE employees) but there is also a downside as benefits are not as generous if you can't work and of course work is not as reliable. So SE have more risk (& I speak as someone self employed and hoping to be PAYE) so regular amount sre difficult to assess. My earning this year will be much, much lower than last year.

If someone works in the black market, all payment in cash, then there are no records to make an assessment but I also guess that in those cases the NRP is claiming benefits.
Isn't this the only scenario where assessment is challenging?

Payment is a separate issue - but if PAYE or SE then action can be taken. I know the issue for some parents is that they don't want to go through the system and I can relate to that. I speak as a parent who's ex doesn't live in the UK so have never had payments.

HanBanan that is so so very very true. I am so glad to see that in writing. My family have said, variously:

'We would not stoop/lower ourselves to his level by getting in contact with him'

'I would not lower myself by contacting his mother and nor should you'

My father, my own father has shouted at me once 'No wonder your husband left you' (fuck that hurt. I am barely in contact with any of my family anymore. I consider them to be almost as low as my exH now)

Exh@s family have no contact with me or ds - they blame me entirely for their brother/son clambering on a plane to Thailand with 20k of our money and all his own daughters post office savings (8 grand)

The CSA wrote to me saying 'sorry but there's no reciprocal agreement for enforcement of child support with Thailand so case is closed'. This is true. So when is there going to be a reciprocal agreement? And why is there not one now?

And to top it all, exh emailed his friend and employer in Germany when he left, to say '...in the end I thought sod it and just left. I am now in Thailand' after explaining a pack-of-lies woe-is-me story, and his friend emailed him back saying 'you poor love. I will give you heaps of freelance work don't worry.'

ffs

Having said that, exh's 'best' friends here in the UK have been fantastically supportive to me. But still, they never rang him up (I had a mobile for him at one point) and asked him what the fuck is he doing and when is he going to support his little boy and how the HELL could he just abandon a wife and three children to shag whores?

Oh well. People aren't very red-blooded in the UK. It's all stiff upper lip and don't stoop to their level. Fat lot of good that is to me and ds when he needs a new pair of shoes or, one day, the money to go on a school skiing trip.

Bastard exh and men like him.

Smum99 Unfortunately that's not the case, assessments can be challenging for many many different reasons, I know parents get frustrated, being one myself who has a claim through the CSA. The only reason I had any luck was because I worked there and even then it was a blinking challenge, the majority of the staff care, but the minority don't and that makes it hard.

There are MAJOR problems with the system and that makes it challenging, if theres a problem the case faults, which means it can't be done online and all it takes is the system to decide it's going in a bad mood.

Self employed is one of the hardest, what people should realise is that accounts are hired for a reason, to hide how much you earn, to ensure you pay less tax, therefore you pay less maintenance. It's a bit mental and there SHOULD be another way to ensure people get fair maintenance.

And what about the immortal line 'just forget about it' from well-meaning friends/family who you open your heart to once in a blue moon?!?!

Does anyone know if there is a survey on what maintenance single parents do actually receive?

I'd love to see one done. And perhaps linked in with childhood poverty in the UK because I bet it's a main causal factor.

Seriously, if there hasn't been a survey or research then it's proof positive that society doesn't give a shit.

I think you are right... I was asking for a yes or no question and have only got a little bit more than 20 answers. (with just 1 positive)

I guess we are either too tired/scared/cynical to fight for what is fair, but hey ho... I wouldn't judge. It seems I am not so happily embracing peace at the expense of justice. :(