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Hello All
My experience is this. I fought hard to get a 50/50 shared care agreement for each of my 2 daughters. this meant that my daughters spent 1 week with me then 1 week with mum.
their mum does childminding through a limited company and puts everything down as a cost so her earnings are "zero".
my eldest decided to live with me - because mums earnings are "zero" I get no maintenance.
my youngest still has 50/50 - I have to pay maintenance when she is with mum but get none when she is with me because a only primary carer (receipient of CB) can receive maintenance and any way mums earnings are "zero".
is there anything I can do to get maintenance for my eldest? I have given up on getting maintenance for youngest as the system does not cater for shared care arrangement well.
thanks!
I presume this is through the CSA - the variation system allows you to go for a variation on diversion of income (and also, though harder to prove, lifestyle inconsistent with income) so that's one avenue you could explore. Another is to report her to the Inland Revenue as this sounds like it could be tax evasion.
CMS does cater better for shared care so there is a light on the horizon when your case gets transferred to CMS.
Hello Donttellimpike
I am William, the Child Maintenance Options consultant
Under the new Government statutory scheme, the Child Maintenance Service, if the paying parent can prove that they carry out an equal amount of day-to-day care as well as having equal shared care then the Child Maintenance Service regards neither parent to be the paying parent so their child maintenance would be set as nil, even if one parent receives child benefits or tax credits as the child’s parent.
Also, Child Benefit should be paid to the parent with the main day-to-day care of the child. So, if your eldest lives with you, you may be entitled to claim that.
With regards to your daughter’s mum’s income, the Child Maintenance Service work out child maintenance using their taxable gross annual income as the starting point. By ‘income’, they mean earnings from employment, self-employment (profits from a business), occupational or personal pensions and certain benefits. So, if your daughters mum receives profits from the limited company, she may be liable to pay maintenance.
You have not indicated how your maintenance is arranged. The different ways maintenance can be set up include the family-based arrangement which is an agreement between the parents without the involvement of the Government or legal system. Although not legally enforceable, this type of arrangement does tend to work better and last longer than other arrangements.
There is also the Child Maintenance Service who can calculate maintenance leaving parents to arrange payment between themselves, or collect payments and pay to the parent/ main carer.
There is also the Consent Order (Minute of Agreement in Scotland which differs from a Consent Order), which is an arrangement agreed through the courts.
If you would like further details about the different options available to set up maintenance, you can contact Child Maintenance Options. Contact details are on the website http://www.cmoptions.org.
Regards
William
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