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Hi guys,
Just looking for some advice on what the child maintenance use as income for annual review?
I had a wage decrease in January 2020 of more than 25%. The cms recalculated the payments and I have paid them on time, ever since.
I’ve been furloughed and the accountants of the company I’m employed with have calculated my furlough pay on my last years income ( the one which was 25% higher before the pay decrease) I was told this is just how HMRC had requested furlough payments to be calculated. I did query it immediately and was told it was all ok and correct.
Anyway, my company wrote a letter RE furlough and in that letter did explain that the furlough pay had been calculated on last years salary and as soon as I come off furlough my pay will be reinstated at the lower amount as that is my ‘ actual ‘ yearly income.
I didn’t inform cms of this as I view it as a temporary income change , which could stop at any time- maybe I’ve gone about it incorrectly but , at the time, that was my understanding of income changes etc.
My annual review is up in December. Will the cms use my ‘ current’ wage which is a furlough wage and not permanent or will they use my actual gross income which the payments were calculated on?
I’ve read up and it says they use the ‘ a full tax year ‘ which won’t be 2020/21 as it’s not a full year yet. I do have my letter from my employer as evidence to show my increased wage is temporary. My employer chose to make my wage up to 100% but my partner has unfortunately been hit financially due to covid and the house hold income is greatly reduced. My fear is cms will use my ‘ furloughed’ income and also backdate the payments because I didn’t notify them if it ( thought I was doing the right thing - now worrying) I just couldn’t afford to pay that much on a income that not permanent.
I assume the cms won’t have ‘ policies’ yet on furlough etc but I don’t think I should be penalised when it’s the HMRC who tells the employers how to calculate furlough.
Thanks for your help.
hi,
my experience with annual reviews is that they always do calculation based on old/out-dated information and I have to ring them every year to correct them. CMS want to know about income changes, especially if the change is going to last for at least 12 weeks. what happened in my case is I had been a director of a company and was paying maintenance.
when covid kicked off, I winded down my company. I got a new perm job. they kicked me out only after 2 weeks during the lockdown. I told CMS and sent them evidence of this new job and termination. So CMS decided I am to pay NIL (zero) maintenance. At first they said this job has lasted less than 12 weeks so it doesn't count. But I had to bug them and tell them I am out of work, getting zero income now.
when they do your annual review, phone them and tell them about your present situation and what income you are getting. that should clear things up hopefully.
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