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Hi everyone,
I received a CMS letter today which stated that I will be having to pay a certain amount for my daughter based on my income, However, they have quoted my income as being almost double what it actually is, and said that it's based on most recent HMRC records. I have been in this current job for ~2 years now, so I'm unsure how this can be,
I will be phoning them tomorrow to try to sort this out, but would like to know how straightforward this process is? Obviously I have wage slips etc. that I can provide. But will they insist that I pay the quoted figure in the mean time? If so, will I be entitled to any sort of refund? Does anyone else have experience with this sort of issue?
Thanks in advance.
Contact them ASAP and ask them to look at it again, tell them you can provide your recent payslips, hopefully they will agree to recalculate. They may require you to make the quoted payments while they look into it, but if they find they were in error, they should factor the overpayment into future payments and make an adjustment that reflects that.
Best of luck
Thanks Mojo.
One more question:
My wife is due a baby soon, for which one of us will be claiming child benefit.
If I claim, will CMS count that as income?
I don't think child benefit is taken into account, but you should get a reduction for another child, and also if you pay into a pension too. Here's a link to more info about how your maintenance is calculated.
Thanks again for the response.
I hope you’ll forgive yet another question:
They accepted that their initial figure was wrong and way above the 25% margin. They said they would get back to me in 6 weeks after taking this into consideration, but their start date for the case/claim is today. Will they expect me to pay the extortionate figure between now and when they reasses?
I would speak to them about it, but they may well want you to make the payment whilst they sort it out. You could use the CMS calculator to work out the approximate amount that you should be paying and agree to pay that, or at least put it aside, other wise if you don't pay anything, you will find yourself in arrears.
www.gov.uk/calculate-your-child-maintenance
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