Welcome to the DAD.Info forum: Important Information – open to read:
Our forum aims to provide support and guidance where it can, however we may not always have the answer. The forum is not moderated 24 hours a day, so If you – or someone you know – are being harmed or in immediate danger of being harmed, call the police on 999.
Alternatively, if you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123.
If you are worried about you or someone you know is at risk of harm, please click here: How we can help
Hi,
I hope someone can help me.
I am currently going through a separation/break up with my wife and have a child with her. I also have an older child with a former partner for whom i have been paying informal maintenance based on the CSA calculator (I think it's 15%)..
I am keen to keep any future arrangements informal and can't find the answer to this anywhere. Do I now pay based just on two children and then split the amount in half for each ex (10% I think each), or would I have to pay two separate arrangements for one child at 15% each...
It seems paying 30% of my income is a bit much! Can anyone advise what the outcome would be if CSA were to become involved?
Thanks.
The above link is to the CMS (CSA) leaflet that explains in some depth how maintenance is calculated. For two children it is 16% of gross income so that would mean 8% per child.
You are probably paying an amount calculated from the old CSA2 scheme and the calculations were slightly different I believe.
I can't see you former partner being happy with a lesser payment and your wife, knowing what you pay in maintenance for your older child will be expecting the same....it's a dilemma for you and it might be better to open a case with the CMS yourself to try and avoid unreasonable demands.
Here's a link to the CMS calculator, which will give you a rough idea of what you can expect to pay.
www.gov.uk/calculate-your-child-maintenance
Best of luck
^^ As NJ said.
The % each child receives goes down as the number of children that you have to pay for goes up.
In your case, each child will receive slightly less than if you were paying for one child.
Now comes the bad bit.
I bet you that the mother of your 1st child will not be happy about this.
You may get the usual response about "... why should my child suffer because you have another child by someone else?...".
Unfortunately I can see one of the mothers taking this straight to the CMS.
Hope not for your sake... they are incompetent and horrible to paying parents (whatever [censored]).
Hello JP360
With you having a family-based arrangement with your elder child’s other parent and planning on arranging a family-based arrangement with your ex-partner, you may wish to try to discuss and negotiate your maintenance payments with them both. Family-based arrangements are not legally enforceable and there are no strict rules or formulas to follow. Therefore parents can decide the terms of their agreement to suit their current circumstances.
The Child Maintenance Options website has a useful tools and guides section that you and your children's other parents may find helpful when trying to negotiate your family-based arrangement. This can be found at http://www.cmoptions.org.
The Child Maintenance Service works out child maintenance using the paying parent's gross income, which is income before Income Tax and National Insurance are taken off, but after occupational or personal pension scheme contributions are taken away. In most cases this gross income figure comes from information given to HM Revenue & Customs by the paying parent, their employer or a third-party such as an accountant.
As Nannyjane has posted you may find the link to how the Child Maintenance Service calculates child maintenance useful when trying to work out the amount of maintenance payable to your children.
For more information on the different ways to set up child maintenance, you can visit the Child Maintenance Options website.
The DWP have a sorting out separation web-app that you may find useful. It offers help and support to separating and separated families. The link is: www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/sorting-out-separation.
Regards
William
Welcome to the DAD.info forum.
We don’t like to set ‘rules’, but to make sure that you and the other dads are kept safe, we have some requests. When engaging with the forum, please be aware of the following:
- The forum is not moderated 24 hours per day.
- Many of the moderators do so on a voluntary basis. Whilst they may be able to provide some guidance, advice or support, they may not be able to deal with specifics.
- We are not an emergency crisis service so if you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call emergency services.
- If you are concerned about the safety of a child, please click here to find the support you can get for them (link to new page)
- If you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123. They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.
We hope you find this forum a supportive environment and thank you for joining us.