Maintenance calculation, anyone successfully challenged excessive pension contributions?

[Geopopw]

My ex earns 89k. His maintenance is assessed at 550 a month? The online calculator says it should be more and the advisor has said it must be his pension contributions that are making it less? She mentioned asking for a variation but apparently it’s a long process. I am frustrated he could get away with this it seems so wrong?

Just go through the process.

You do have to really push. The child maintenance service dont have a mandate to really sort thesethings. The government want parents to sort this out between themselves so despite having many legal powers, they almost never use them. Men are never made to sell their house and never sent to prison for non payment, despite these being options which should be used again lots of men who are thousands in arrears and wont pay.

So, you have to push. They will try to talk you out of it. Just keep insisting.

It will be looked at and if he is found to have starred the higher contributions when you split or went for maintenance then it should be an easy case and they will do the calculation as if he isnt making those extra contributions.

But it is a hard road and you just need to insist.

That is totally incorrect. The later he started to contribute to his pension, the greater the percentage of the salary he can contribute to his pension without being considered a diversion of income.

£550 is a lot of money still.
He will pay the 40% tax on that too so it's worth a lot more out of his 89k

My ex is claiming to earn 50 grand a year and I get more than you OP for one child so that calculation is very off. Somehow they’ve manage to calculate that despite a 20 grand pay rise. My child-support is dropping by 50 quid next month. Goodness knows how they come to these conclusions.

He’s got take home pay of £4,946 before pension contributions!

How many nights per week does your ex have the child/children? It's based on how many nights each parent has the child/children as well as income, hence different variations in how much each person receives.

How many children do you have and how often do they stay overnight?

To be honest and that’s probably not as far off as we are thinking because it’s only 12% for one child is an absolute maximum but there is the additional over £800 a month payment isn’t there ?

£800 a week sorry

You can if its deemed excessive. Not sure what excessive would constitute. Would perhaps also depend on his contribution level before cms got involved.

This type of thing depends on a number of factors though.

I've put 89k through the cms calculator for one child on basis he sees the kid one night a week and it is 660 a month so I'm not sure you're being swindled here I'm afraid.

I have just looked at the calculator and it doesn’t appear to factor in pension contributions. It seems to be based on his income, how often he has them overnight and whether he has other children.

*and how many children he has with you of course.

I don't know anything about the calculator but if it's based on taxable income, the way HMRC look at it, that would be after pension contributions are taken out. So he could earn 89K net, elect to contribute the maximum allowed in voluntary pension contributions (40K) and have a taxable income of 59K.

This is correct. Taxable income which can be impacted by a number of things.

I think pension contributions would have to be a lot to be considered excessive. What does the calculator say if you assume something standard like 10%?

No, if he was making regular pension contributions of a certain percentage of his salary and then increased that to a much higher percentage when she opened a child maintenance case, then it is seen as deliberately diverting it to avoid maintenance.

That is incorrect. The allowed pension contributions depend on individual circumstances. It doesn't matter if he increases it or not.

I suggest applying for a variation, but be warned that the CMS is an utter bastard to deal with. It will take months and months before you make any progress on this. They are a bunch of incompetent and lazy idiots who haven’t a fucking clue every time I chase mine up. However, fight for what is legally your child’s. You can apply for a variation for excessive pension as it’s seen as a diversion of income. Good luck OP.

This older source suggests that a 12% contribution would be ok.
medium.com/@VOC_ORG/how-does-the-cms-deal-with-pension-contribution-levels-when-considering-variations-50fac4463baa

And £40k is roughly what you can contribute and still get tax relief on it.

If married, pensions may have also been considered during any split.

They are asking me for proof that he is putting too much into his pension. Do they think I have access to his wage slips or something?

In the OPs case given the level of earnings he's going to be paying more than most regardless of some pension diversion.

Would be good to understand what is seen as adequate as I don't think I've seem a clear answer on that.

Just a tiny contribution to the thread- my ex changed his name to avoid paying the minimum amount out of his benefits!!

Totally different level obviously

I read stuff like that, and I think well it could be worse, but then why should we think that? Paying for your children should be minimum standard. It should be child abuse and treated on a society level and criminal level If you do not support your children.