CMS payments - what is fair?!

[Headspinning09]

I've been looking at the figures and doing CMS calculation on top of CMS calculation for hours. I can't work out what is reasonable to ask my XP to pay in CMS & childcare costs for our two DC.

We still reside in the family home so no CM has changed hands yet and we still parent together as before, but in the next three months will be going our separate ways. He will remain here, I will be downsizing to a smaller house.

He earns: £113,600 (salary and bonus) Gross after pension contributions.

I am the receiving parent, I get the Child Benefit also £160pm.
The plan is he will have our DC 2-3 nights a week (up to 155 nights per year).

We have huge childcare costs. Both DC in nursery cost £2900 pm, for the full 5 day week. When I move out I'll claim UC which if approved will pay up to £1600 pm in childcare costs.

What should he be paying in these circumstances?

CMS is a straight percentage of earnings. Assume you have 2 children so would be 25% of gross taxable earnings, I believe.

That is all he is legally required to pay, by the way.

so in your case, £2365 a month?

just go off the calculator at first surely? Unfortunately it doesn’t really take into account childcare costs but if UC is covering some too that will help a lot. It would be nice if he agreed to pay more than the calculator says but I’m not sure you can demand it really. (Without asking court).
you may also have a case for spousal maintenance if there is a very big discrepancy in your earnings but you’d need advice on that.

What does the calculator say?
Your estimated child maintenance calculation£209.50 a week or £907.18 a month
Based on the information you gave us, the Child Maintenance Service would calculate this as the estimated amount you should receive from the other parent.
This amount will be less if the other parent has to pay maintenance for children they have with someone else.

through the calculator

Where does 25% come from?

I spotted the Child Benefit. Have you only been claiming this since splitting, or the whole time? I wanted to flag up the Higher Income Charge, just in case, as from the info given, you shouldn't have been receiving it with that level of income.

Legally he only has to pay CMS and childcare (if needed) on his days.
Say he does 4-6 days per fortnight and he works on weekdays. 2 of those days will be weekends so he needs to pay 2 to 4 days of childcare per fortnight or 4 to 6 days of childcare per month.

EDIT - the mediator we are seeing thinks we should be basing CMS on actual child related costs. Roughly I've worked out we will have individual costs of £2200 pm each, including the childcare costs and food/bills etc.

Still not sure what I should be asking him to pay. I understand he should be responsible for childcare on his days though. In practice, our nursery will not bill separately and if he has an average of 3 nights pw, how would you work out how much of the childcare bill he should pay?

So he'd be bringing in about £5500 a month on that salary?

Why is he staying in the family home and you moving if you're having bulk of custody?

Cms will say £900 ish which is bullshit but legally that's all he HAS to pay (and some shit bag men don't even pay the minimum they're required)

If you've agreed on a more equal split then maybe consider living costs, childcare, pension contributions

It's fine to receive the child benefits. The higher earner will need to arrange to pay it back via Self Assessment.
As he is £100k+ he is probably doing a SA tax return anyway.

Whatever CMS calculator states for child maintenance plus he should pay for childcare on days he has DC because they are his responsibility on those days. If your DC attend nursery 5 days a week and 2 of those days stbxh has the DC then he should pay for however many childcare days in the month fall on his days. If he just has DC at weekends he would not be responsible for any childcare. You could ask him to contribute half of the nursery fees that you don't get subsidised by the government or receive UC help for them. He might agree if he is a decent father and he loves his DC.

if he has an average of 3 nights pw, how would you work out how much of the childcare bill he should pay?

How many of those are nursery days ? Assuming that it’s 4 nursery days per fortnight (because he has 2 weekend days) He therefore has 8 nursery days in a month of 28 days so he’d owe 8/28 of the nursery bill. I assume that nursery publishes a daily rate.

Is it not 20% for one child and 25% for two?

Nope. 12% for 1 child. 16% for 2