CSA - taking on self employed/own company non-resident parent

[timefliesby]

PLEASE JOIN THIS THREAD IF YOU ARE IN A SIMILAR SITUATION.

Hello all,
I broke up with my ex-partner a year ago. During that time, I have been trying to get proper maintenance payments for my children aged 2 and 4. This is proving to be a difficult task. I was never married but co-habited with my ex. He has his own company and draws a salary. He states that his income is lower than it actually is.

I believe that the CSA is not equipped to deal with higher income families, especially where the non resident parent has his/her own business or is self-employed. In my case, we also lost our home and most of our belongings (my ex stayed in the family home). There appears to be no allowance for replacing these things.

I disagree with maintenance being set as a standard 20% of the non resident parent's salary which decreases the more often the children stay over at the non-resident parent's house. The resident parent by default ends up forking out for uniform, clothes, classes, school trips, etc. It is easy for the non-resident parent to avoid sharing costs on these. So therefore taking a further percentage off what is already a low contribution (20%) is fundamentally flawed. Surely, it should be based on what the children actually cost? And then the higher earning parent should pay a higher percentage of these costs? That would be fairer don't you agree?

Why aren't individual circumstances taken into account?
My children are very young and I was the one who sacrificed career to bring them up taking a significant pay cut. My ex was the main bread winner. Why is this not taken into account? My ex earned 90% of the family income to support our children whilst I stayed home to look after them. Why, therefore, when he chooses no longer to be with us, should I suddenly have to pay the vast majority of their costs when I am not set up to do this? In the past year, I have returned to work part time but child care fees are paid for solely by me, with no input from my ex. Why does the CSA not insist that these costs are shared at the very least equally?

As it is, the children and I can not afford our own home and live with my mother, whilst my ex enjoys a wealthy lifestyle. The CSA are implicit in spreading child poverty whilst they cannot bring self-employed/higher income non resident parents to task.

PLEASE JOIN THIS THREAD. I will not accept the above and I intend to take our plight further. The rules governing child maintenance can and must be changed.

In numbers, we can do this. Even if you don't want to share your story, please just add that you are in by adding "I'm in" to this thread. I will then keep you updated and ask for support where necessary. First stop is my local MP.

Many thanks,

No one pays any attention, and no one seems to care. I have tried for years to get a fair maintenance payment for my daughter. NRP was self employed on £223 a week. I have managed to get to tribunal stage, but whatever I win, that is it, as he is now employed... buy guess who... his brother who he was once an equal partner with. He is still on £223 a week only he now has wage slips to prove it. If I want to contest his new situation, I have to start the whole process from scratch without any evidence at all. Sadly, the truth is he earns £223 in one and a half days. My maintenance is £27 a week and I am lucky if I get that. He is almost a year in arrears. When I asked the CSA to recover the arrears she said "You can't expect someone to find £850 all at once", to which I responded I have to find that amount every month on my own for nursery. Also, the reason the maintenance is set at £27, is because 20% is taken off for his new wife's sons from her previous marriage. However, these children are already provided for by their own father and mother that both have good jobs. Something needs to be done. I think to start with there should be a set minimum, then they have to work accordingly and can't get out of paying because they lie about their income. How can a builder claim to earn less than a part time school leaver that works in a supermarket?? ... and actually be believed?? I also don't think money should be deducted for children that aren't theirs. And if they go on to have more children, the cost of this should come from their household budget. My friend has had her money cut thrre times for each of her ex partners new children. Sadly, it's all about the father and what he can afford. I have got my Tribunal soon so will post how it goes. Just to warn anyone thinking of taking it to Tribunal, it may be worth bearing in mind the following. I was asked to provide evidence of his lifestyle not being in line with his earnings. I did this with lots of help from various people and sent it to the Tribunal for my case. He then took his copy of all my evidence and presented it to a local court and asked for me to be given a three year order for harassment. He turned up with a barrister and his request was granted. I didn't have a leg to stand on, despite it being against the law to use evidence or distribute it for any other purpose than the case it is originally intended for. His new wife has taken great pleasure in distributing my harassment order to anyone she can think of including my daughter's school. All I ever wanted was a fair maintenance payment. I wasn't greedy or unfair. I didn't try and take his house or his business or go for outrageous amounts, I just wanted a fair contribution for our daughter. It's been a long and tiring process that I honestly wish I had never started. He is a bully and each time I stood up to him, my situation became worse than it was before. He tells lies about me and everyone believes him, to the point I can't even get upset by it anymore. I would be so greatful if there was someone that could help all of us. I have thought about sitting with MP and showing him threads, but this all seems so unimportant to people not affecHouse

ted by it.

Hi all, from timefliesby to Fontaine, and everyone in between.

A quick 'call to action' for everyone, especially if you have a twitter profile! But also for anyone who has the energy to make their MPs aware of their cases.

Context is, I'm preparing for my second tribunal hearing (with financial expert in attendance), and so I'm getting sucked back into the rabbit hole of interaction with the CMS again, and getting angry and cross, etc etc.

In that process, I had a bit of contact with the senior policy adviser at Gingerbread this week - Janet Allbeson (I asked her to raise the cause of people having difficulties like ours at a forthcoming 'customer experience event' that the CMS are putting on in the north east - I'm not in the north east, so I just dropped her an email).

Anyway, she emailed me back, and one of the things she said was that they have had a meeting this week with the Child Maintenance minister, Ros Altmann.

Ros Altmann has apparently said that difficulties with non-compliant non resident parents who are self-employed are in the minority. I have no idea what is informing her perception there - could be anecdote, could be stats. I also don't know whether she realises that company directors play the same kinds of games, or if she thinks they are in a minority too.

Anyhow, here's the rub. Ros Altmann apparently said that she does listen to MPs. So if you have the energy, get to your MP and tell them about your difficulties.

An easier option though might be to tweet Ros Altmann - because she also told Gingerbread that she listens to parents too. So, I've been promoting a tweet to her, at the foot of this message. Feel free to amend it, to send it to your MPs as well, and to tailor it to your own circumstances; there are already some eyecatching adaptations on twitter!

You might also like to have a look at a facebook group that has been set up, called 'Child Maintenance Service - Make it Work'; it has been set up by Charis Williams, who is a tv presenter who is having a difficult time with her CMS case and her nrp who doesn't play fair.

Anyway, here's what I'm proposing - I just thought it would be good to have something easy and constructive to do, and Ros Altmann's contention that we are a minority, hence not a priority, was like a red rag to a bull to me this week! She thinks we barely exist, so let's tell her otherwise!

(and do have a peer at Charis's page; she's got a relatively high profile, and lots of energy by the look of it - and her page could make it possible to organise as well as share stories etc.).

Happy tweeting!

@rosaltmann ‪#‎childmaintenance‬ We receive low/no support from self-employed/co.director NRP playing the system. CMS failing us ‪#‎cmsmakeitwork‬

PS: There are new (experimental) stats published today by @govuk on the new 2012 CMS scheme that I think are obscuring, to say the least! And certainly no mention of the difficulties PWCs have with avoidant NRPs who use their self-employed/co.director status to evade or reduce their liabilities.

Here's a link to the stats if anyone's interested (it states at the end of their pictoral publication that they welcome feedback!): 2012 statutory child maintenance scheme: Aug 2013 to Nov 2015 (experimental) - Publications - GOV.UK

I think it is really unfair for the Child Minister @rosaltmann to say to Gingerbread that cases where PWCs struggle with these types of avoidant NRPs are 'a minority hence not a priority' (to paraphrase what I'm told she said). And today's stats don't point to where she might be getting her information from.

If we tell her we exist, that might at least be something - she apparently listens to parents and MPs.

If anyone's up for a quick bit of twittervism today then, here's what I've been tweeting, if you want to join me - let's challenge this minister's attitude! (@CharisWilliams should RT you, so do leave her tag in!)

@Gingerbread @CharisWilliams #childmaintenance Many PWCs struggle with #selfemployed #director NRPs. Please help @rosaltmann! #cmsmakeitwork

Happy tweeting!

last year I made an application for child maintenance against nrp who has his own business. they informed me that I couldn't make an application to take dividends into account because his dividends had been paid before my application. The CMS were appalling they didn't return calls, lied to me. I have just had all three of my complaints upheld by case examiner.

I now have the pleasure of dealing with them again and guess what they had received my application for variation in November and filed it on the system and done absolutely nothing with it - so I'm making yet another complaint.

Sorry, I don't think the link I posted to the stats out today quite came out properly... I'll try again:

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/2012-statutory-child-maintenance-scheme-aug-2013-to-nov-2015-experimental

Racmactac... I know just how you feel (complaining myself at the moment too). It's like trying to swim through treacle. Not good enough at all. I wish you much strength. Kim xx

Sorry Racmactac... I've just realised I missed part of the significance of your message.

Sounds like you were saying that they DID have the information you sent in, which means that they hadn't acted on it; but later said that you were the one that had missed a deadline.

I imagine you're very familiar with their complaints system now, but just for the benefit of other thread users, the complaints system can provide financial compensation too. (I'm asking for this on my own complaint right now).

I don't know how great it is; I'm told that there are certain criteria (I'm waiting to hear what exactly), and that in my own case it may not be much. But for your case Racmactac it sounds as though it will be fairly easy to quantify your loss, because you know what the figures were for the dividend.

I wonder if they will be offering to put you in the position that you would have been, had the dividend been taken into account? What on earth will they do to put that right for you I wonder?

Would be good to hear how you get on.

with the original complaint I took it to tribunal and reached an agreement with nrp. The complaint side I pursued and they have upheld all three complaints and given me £100 compensation.

I have now issued another application (circumstances changed) and they have filed my variation application and done nothing with it!

I have made this a formal complaint, and reported it to the MP

Ugh. They drive me mad. Good on you for getting it before your MP. I really, really hope it does a bit of good. And if you ask your MP to tell Ros Altmann about your troubles too (and if you fancy tweeting the tweet above!) that would also be brilliant... I hate her approach to us, that we are 'a minority and hence not a priority'. I'd love to find out on what basis she calls us a minority, and to challenge her attitude on not making us a priority.

Not sure if you're on twitter, but if you fancy a quick cut and paste, try this one of my tweets from today (I'd really, really appreciate it; I'd love to do any small thing for us all, but I think we're all so worn down that many of us haven't quite got just that extra bit of oomph to turn attention to other stuff as well... but I'd so love Ros Altmann to be deluged with some noise she finds difficult to ignore!):

@Gingerbread @CharisWilliams #childmaintenance Many PWCs struggle with #selfemployed #director NRPs. Please help @rosaltmann! #cmsmakeitwork

have tweeted it!

Yay! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!

All the venting on here but will this situation ever be changed? I see HMRC are tightening up the rules on dividend payments to company directors but still no moves by the CSA to tap into those payments.

I bill my clients over 2k a week but the CSA comes to me for the £5 a week payment for 2 children. It is disgraceful that this happens but it counter balances the injustices built into the family law system.

Talk to the CSA nicely and they become your best friend. Make a payment of any sort and they then leave you alone and label you a "compliant parent". Job done.

Thank you CompliantParent. Your comment is very useful. We will be able to use this information to strengthen our case and show how flawed the whole CSA and family law system is. I have a meeting with my MP in February and a comment like yours is so valuable. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Fontaine, this is the UK. Property Law and Business law trump any rights of individuals or the welfare of children. Meet as much as you want with MPs but this will never change. Loopholes by which company directors can flout their social and moral obligations will always exist. If HMRC cannot even pin down the likes of Google and Amazon then the hard up CSA will never be able to go after NRPs who dodge child support.

When the law stops recognising children as property and instead finds both parents equally responsible for the welfare and upkeep of the children then we might reach a situation where many child support dodgers can then be prosecuted for neglect.

Until then I will pay just .25% of my earnings to my children's mother every week whilst squirreling away the rest into trust funds for them.

Very commendable. I am sure your children will be very proud.

For the record, I won my Tribunal. NRPs can plead poverty as much as they like, but if a PWC can prove otherwise like I did, a good Judge will not be interested in what HMRC are stupid enough to believe. There are so many PWC that would not have the ability or resources to put a case together and for this reason I am going to use my case and various Internet threads as an example when I meet with the MP. Nearly everyone I spoke to said I didn't stand a chance of winning, including a barrister who said it wouldn't be worth his time or mine. We can but try. Any child brought up with good morals isn't going to be bought off with a trust fund, neither will they have much respect or admiration for a NRP that has watched a PWC struggle. It's a shame you have so much bitterness. I hope you have a lovely week and that things improve in your life so you can move on and find happiness.

CompliantParent is telling it like it is so far as some asepects go, it's true. Meh.

Fontaine... come over to the light side! Check out facebook group 'Child Maintenance Service - Make it Work' Hope to see you there!

www.facebook.com/groups/1661962750689743/permalink/1744081349144549/?comment_id=1744396322446385&ref=notif&notif_t=group_comment_reply

Shared Parenting is long overdue. Implement equality for parents in law and then there would be no get out clause left for NRPs. Chasing the CSA for payments is just a distraction whilst the law remains broken.

I am not bitter and neither does my ex struggle. She is comfotably well off but yes it irks her that the sperm donor she chose can wriggle out of payments that she thought she was entitled to.

I want to be a father. The law prevents me from being a parent.

CompliantParent - would you be interested in joining a nascent campaign to make things work better? I hear you, that it's the law that remains broken (I'm not a lawyer; but I recognise more and more that, if things are to ever be improved via petitioning, then changes have to be aimed there. And I despair too of the system ever being better than the clunking thing it is).

The group I've posted the link to does have male members as well as females. As you'd expect, most of the PWCs are female, but not all, and there are some who have been on both sides of the fence as children have gone to live with different parents. Perspectives can be surprising sometimes too. It's also challenging; there are polarised views. You may not feel you have the time or inclination to join, but... I don't know? People come to the discussions holding all the hurts of their own personal situations, and it's so easy to misread one another. I'm the first to say I have to work hard myself to challenge my blind spots. I think the campaign has potential though - all parents need something fairer than what we have right now. I hope you'll think about coming along to help shape some positive change; everyone needs it - most of all our children.

Truly I am sorry to hear that, I really am. Sometimes things seem to be regional. Where we live fathers have equal rights and if desired they have a right to 50% access. Am I right in understanding you are prevented from having a fair access arrangement? Sorry to think you were bitter. If this is the case, I'm not surprised you feel the way you do. It is an unfair system on both sides. It maybe better dealt with all in the same place through mediation, rather than access in the family court and finance through the CSA. Some NRPs have a bad time as well, with access and finance.

I'm sorry KimS123 I removed myself from the facebook group. I cant be dealing with the idiots on there that think they can avoid paying maintenance and are proud of it.

I have enough stress in my life without being wound up by idiots!

Hi Racmactac,

I've just had a look at the outbreak that occurred on there; the Icke-steeped antagonist seems to have also gone from the group. But not before scaring off a few people who could sign that petition one day; maybe that's what he wanted. Seems a real problem, how to organise.

Very sad, but I hear you on not needing any more stress.

I currently have a case with the csa against my ex who had his own company when we were together and set about liquidating it when he got the csa letters through. He was to pay £40 a week, safe to say i havent seen a penny as he is ignoring them and his arrears are over £1000 now. His company got liquidated in december but he is still working under his company as his works fb page clearly shows. If i send the screenshots to the csa can they use them against him? Id be interested to know if he is actually commiting fraud doing the above. Csa are nearly done with a financial investigation into him and if not successful then legal action will happen. Has anybody got any experience of this happening?

My first post here :)
timefliesby - I could have written your post ! It totally sums up my situation - the only difference is that I am 3 years on without any financial support. I m about to take my ex to court as it seems to be the only way to get any result! - Sadly!!
I will watch this thread with great interest
Glad2BeFree - thank you so much for all the info you have posted - I will try and digest all

My ex has recently gone Self Employed as that was condition of their appointment. Accounts not yet seen as Ltd Company is only new. Consent Order issued based on assumed numbers for income. I hear that once a Consent Order has been in place for a year then either parent can then then apply to CMO for re-assessment. Based on what I read above most Directors of Ltd Company use the low salary high dividend approach as more tax efficient. However, it seems that CMO refer only to Salary? Would have thought that Self Assessment would show all sources in income. So what is the issue here? Is it that CMO don't know how to handle Self Employed NRP or HMRC are slow at providing copies of Self Assessment Tax Returns?

I am in the same boat...things need to change..following

found the petition...please support

Hello,

I just signed the petition, “Theresa May MP: Close the loophole for the self employed when making CSA payments.” I think this is important. Will you sign it too?

Here’s the link:
www.change.org/p/theresa-may-mp-close-the-loophole-for-the-self-employed-when-making-csa-payments?utm_medium=email&utm_source=petition_signer_receipt&utm_campaign=triggered&share_context=signature_receipt&recruiter=550184939

Thanks,
carole