My ex husband has put a cliam in for child benefit

[fgreen79]

Hi, i split up from my ex in 2013, last week i received a letter from tax office as he has put in a counter claim for child benefit. I can only guess his motivation for this is to get the benefit and then he doesnt need to be paying child maintenence any more. As from the annual review from CSA his payments doubled due to the dividends he had pulled from his company. Prevously he lied to them and claimed to only be earning £130 a week, yet his rent was over £1000 a month.
I had to go to court over custody of my children as he would never let me have a full weeken with them, he would insist on collecting them on a sunday at 16:00 so limited activities we could do.
Our current shared care situtation is a 2 week care pattern, i have the children for 8 nights to his 6. Yet the tax office have frozen payments whilst they investigate. This shows how manipulative my ex is and how he doesnt ever put childen first. Has anyone else had similar issues.

You only have the kids slightly more than he does, so could you consider each claiming for one child each? It is usually the parent whom the children mainly reside with who should claim it but where care is shared it is possible to claim for one each I believe. I'm also not sure why he is paying maintainece when he has them only slightly less than half the time. Do you get tax credits for the children too?

It may seem only slightly more but when you go over a year it is more. I pay for school clothes, shoes, pe kit, swimming lessons. I take them to the doctors, dentist, get hair cuts etc.

No I do not have any tax credits as i work full time.

I wouldnt be giving up any cb. Let them investigate. You are the main carer.maintenance will be worked out based on nights of care anyway

You probably know already but

"When deciding who provides the main care for a child, HMRC looks at how many nights your child sleeps at each parent’s home and who organises day to day care such as taking the child to school, arranging medical appointments and buying clothes. "

From his point of view, they live with him as much as you practically yet he has to pay maintenance and give you the child benefit. He then has to pay for them when he has his week with them every fortnight. He's getting a rough deal.

We had this with my DHs ex wife when we had my 2DSDS full time.
Just write a factual letter back to the benefits office stating that they stay with you 8 nights a fortnight and with him 6. Mention that you are the "resident parent", and include a letter from the school who will provide one of you ask, which will confirm that they love with you at your address.
Also start keeping receipts for everything that you buy them, if you don't already.

Rough deal my backside. All the pleasure of children with none of the responsibilities, more like!

Autumn.....he is getting a rough deal? And you base this on what exactly???

The OP had already said he has lied about his income to minimise his maintenance payments, and the she pays for all their clothes, activities, haircuts ect.

CB address can affect school places too, so be careful.

Op, have you considered he may be struggling what with paying £1000 a month rent presumably to rent a house large enough to have the kids with him almost half the time?

All the pleasure of children with none of the responsibilities, more like!

Apart from the fact they have virtually 50:50 care

I would be careful he doesn't try to get 50:50 care, then he would equally be able ask for maintinence form you op.

Cb only goes to one parent. Tough luck on him. If he hadnt manipulated his earnings the op might have been open to some of tge kindhearted suggestions here to share or let him have it. He could also have asked op and explained his reasons. Instead he got her claim frozen.

Can i point out we had an agreement when we spliy up that i would keep CB and he said he would pay £500 a month child maintenance. I never beleived he would stick to this so increased my work from part time to full time, this was a good thing as 3 months later he reduced it to £30 a week. Then he became worse over refusual to let me get the full weekend with my children so went to family court. CMS became involved as he lied about his earnings as he has a limited company, so only pays himself the minimum but in fact he earns £55K a year if not more. I had to gather all the information to request variation and this they did. Working it out from his company accounts, now he is trying to hide earnigs through paying dividens to a family member so now i have to go through the same thing all over agian.

Quite, OP. He might have them for nearly fifty percent of the time but from what you've said, he isn't paying for them!

If he earns £55k a year, even if he had full custody of the kids he wouldn't get CB or he would get very little as it starts to taper off after £50k I believe.

The OP previously stated that he manipulated his earnings on paper so it appears he earns a lot less. I'm guessing he is self employed?

No he is employed through his limited company. He is the only person employed, and is the way his accountants move his money so on paper he looks like he only earns the minimum for tax reasons. All a bit of a joke really.