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Does anybody know what impact a career break has on child maintenance payments?
I am an employee and I have approval from my employer to take a 12 month break. During the break I effectively remain an employee of the company but I receive no income from them.
Questions:
1) If I am receiving zero income then does my maintenance payment become nil
2) As an example... If I paid Β£25 per week now (whilst earning), would that amount accrue as arrears if my payment was reduced to nil during the career break term? And if so...
3) 12 months down the road and back working, how would the Β£1300 arrears be collected?
Note: I am currently on a family based maintenance arrangement but my greedy ex-wife is trying to screw me for more and CMS involvement is imminent. That's a long story and not relevant to this post so I'll happily spare you the detail suffice to say that if my earned income was reduced to nil then our son would not be disadvantaged as my ex is loaded.
Hi,
.
I've moved this to the child maintenance section for you.
.
As far as I am aware if you are not earning then you wouldn'tpay anything, though it may depend on how you will support yourself throughout the 12 months, if you have a large amount of savings they may assess those and award a payment, or if you have any other income that would be taken into account, I would give them a call and ask for some advice.
.
GTTS
Thank you GTTS for correcting my post location error and for replying. I do have savings with which I would support myself. I suppose if I wanted to cheat my ex and the CMS though I could simply state I was being supported by family and friends? The onus would then be on my ex to request a variance but I fail to see how she could prove that i'm supporting myself with savings rather than family and friends which is what I'd declare.
Somewhat academic as I don't intend to cheat the CMS though I would really enjoy p**sing off my ex... I'd love to see the look on her face if I went down that road. When I take the career break do you think I'd be better not informing CMS then and just to continue paying whatever they assess me on currently whilst earning? I could probably meet what I'm assessed to pay from savings.
Separately, when CMS contact HMRC for my gross income I think they'll be using details from the last complete tax year (2014-2015) where I paid 7% of my gross salary into my pension. It is a defined contribution occupational pension provided by my employer whereby they pay in double what I pay in less 1% for annual management so I pay in 7% but end up with 20%. I'll not be able to contribute to this pension during my career break so I've just set up a personal pension to cover the gap. Given that nobody is going to be kind enough to double anything I contribute to my personal pension do you think that CMS will accept a 20% contribution from me as being reasonable? I know there is there no strict definition of 'reasonable' and it's likely to be assessed on a case by case basis though it seems reasonable to me, especially as I can justify it.
Lastly, if my income is assessed from the 2014-15 tax year, would I be right to state that my company pension contributions will be accepted as a variance though my personal pension contributions wouldn't be allowed as I wasn't paying into it during that period?
When I take the career break do you think I'd be better not informing CMS then and just to continue paying whatever they assess me on currently whilst earning? I could probably meet what I'm assessed to pay from savings.
No, Let us say CMS start your "case" today January. Once the "default" calculation is performed, and variations considered - your case will be allocated an annual review date (December 2016, probably). At the annual review (and every subsequent one), CMS will ask HMRC for new gross salary figures - and perform a new calculation using these new revised figures. If the revised figure is zero (no income), then the assessed maintenance will be Β£0. Further, at any time post- January 2016 (the opening of your case) if your gross income will have changed by *at least* 25% - then CMS are obliged to carry out a revised calculation. So, if you know your income will drop by more than 25%, when this happens, you can simply inform CMS and they will do a recalculation.
Under the most recent rules, (as I mentioned in a previous post) the Receiving Parent only has recourse to two (upward) variations: 1) additional income and 2) diversion of income. Under previous rules, your ex could have used the catchy titled variation "lifestyle inconsistent with income" - but this is now gone (and anyway, you could still get away with funding yourself through capital (savings, assets, etc)). So, there is no need to continue to pay whilst you are not in receipt of income.
Separately, when CMS contact HMRC for my gross income I think they'll be using details from the last complete tax year (2014-2015) where I paid 7% of my gross salary into my pension. It is a defined contribution occupational pension provided by my employer whereby they pay in double what I pay in less 1% for annual management so I pay in 7% but end up with 20%. I'll not be able to contribute to this pension during my career break so I've just set up a personal pension to cover the gap. Given that nobody is going to be kind enough to double anything I contribute to my personal pension do you think that CMS will accept a 20% contribution from me as being reasonable?
In short, it depends upon factors such as 1) age, 2) pension already accrued and 3) at what rate any existing pension has accrued. If 20% is consistent with your historical pension contributions (and to be honest 20% is not wholly outlandish), and you are not 18 years old (say), then I would think CMS would *have* to accept that as reasonable - and if they did not, I would appeal.
Lastly, if my income is assessed from the 2014-15 tax year, would I be right to state that my company pension contributions will be accepted as a variance though my personal pension contributions wouldn't be allowed as I wasn't paying into it during that period?
Yes thats correct, only contributions made during that tax year would be deducted from any gross income.
hope helps
God bless you THL... I'm not sure where I'd be without you freely giving your extensive knowledge. Please forgive my current lack of understanding on these issues, it's all very new to me though I'm slowly grasping it - I think! Just to clarify your first paragraph in my words, have you basically said this:
CMS assess me now whilst earning and calculate I should pay Β£25 per week as an example. Next week I start my career break and my earnings drop to zero so I contact the CMS and ask them to recalculate and they will drop my maintenance payments to zero. After 12 months from the first assessment I return to work, CMS do their annual review and my payments go back to Β£25? Thank you for your help
Hello Sean.s
With you having a family-based arrangement in place you may wish to discuss with the other parent your maintenance payments. Although family-based arrangements are not legally enforceable, parents can decide the terms of their agreement to suit their current circumstances, as there are no strict rules or formulas to follow. It can include money and other kinds of support, for example providing school uniforms and clothes.
The Child Maintenance Options website has a useful tools and guides section that you and the other parent 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 (HMRC) by the paying parent, their employer or a third-party such as an accountant.
I have included a link on how the Child Maintenance Service works and how they calculate child maintenance that you may find useful, https://www.gov.uk/how-child-maintenance-is-worked-out/how-the-child-maintenance-service-works-out-child-maintenance.
For more information on all the different ways to set up child maintenance and for a more personalised service, 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
Hello Sean.s
With you having a family-based arrangement in place you may wish to discuss with the other parent your maintenance payments. Although family-based arrangements are not legally enforceable, parents can decide the terms of their agreement to suit their current circumstances, as there are no strict rules or formulas to follow. It can include money and other kinds of support, for example providing school uniforms and clothes.
The Child Maintenance Options website has a useful tools and guides section that you and the other parent 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 (HMRC) by the paying parent, their employer or a third-party such as an accountant.
I have included a link on how the Child Maintenance Service works and how they calculate child maintenance that you may find useful, https://www.gov.uk/how-child-maintenance-is-worked-out/how-the-child-maintenance-service-works-out-child-maintenance.
For more information on all the different ways to set up child maintenance and for a more personalised service, 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
Is this copy cut and paste into every post about CMS?
God bless you THL... I'm not sure where I'd be without you freely giving your extensive knowledge. Please forgive my current lack of understanding on these issues, it's all very new to me though I'm slowly grasping it - I think! Just to clarify your first paragraph in my words, have you basically said this:
CMS assess me now whilst earning and calculate I should pay Β£25 per week as an example. Next week I start my career break and my earnings drop to zero so I contact the CMS and ask them to recalculate and they will drop my maintenance payments to zero. After 12 months from the first assessment I return to work, CMS do their annual review and my payments go back to Β£25? Thank you for your help
No problem, I am happy to share my experiences, where these may be of help to other fathers, (or anyone else). Yes, your understanding is correct.
Glad you've noticed that Twiston... it certainly appears to be. I don't mind it cropping up as it's easy to scroll over but if I'd have found the answer to my queries in any of the information provided by CMO and other web based resources I'd not have needed to post my queries here in the first place! I guess the links could be useful to others who may be drawn to the topic or stumble upon it from elsewhere? Either way, I don't particularly mind William cutting and pasting to his heart's content π
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