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Hello all,
It has just come round to my first end of tax year review of my CMS payments - really quite suprised when my payments have gone up substantually, while my pay has stayed the same, so I phoned them up....
(bit of back story here, and it is relevant) I got divorced in 2013, I ran a sel-employed buisiness and had a part time job, so me and the ex decided that the best thing to do was to average out my earnings over the last year and pay 15% net split over 12 months in arrears, fair enough I thought.
I did this for 13-14 tax year. However in the 14-15 tax year I kinda went off the rails a bit, you know stress, fallout from divorce etc, it all kinda got ontop of me and as a result my earnings collaped to 1/2 my previous earnings, however i was tied into paying CM based on the previous tax year - therefore I ended up paying twice the child maintenance that I should have done, which I did achieve despite having to live on rice and peas for a year.
I then (having conducted no self-employed buisiness for the first part of 14-15 tax year closed the buisiness and got a job on approx 76% of the total pay as my original buisiness/part time employment earnt, however I needed the stability. My ex refused to believe my books (£1200 worth of accountants) and took me to the CMS, who promptly slashed her CM payments by 60% (ouch). Since then fine, I pay her based on my new full time job, all fine and dandy.....
....cont from top/ and the CMS said, after much arguing and me asking "how much do you think I earn?" got the reply x i.e the same as my 13-14 tax year because
"that was the most recent tax return they have" OK I think tax people are pants, I will talk to them and get the most recent tax return sent over. HOWEVER CMS man says "that will not make any difference as the calculation has been made for the following year and the amount you earnt in 13-14 is not over the 25% threshold, therefore we will not reasses"
Great, so I am now paying more based on a calculation based on the wrong figures, even though I paid far more in the past than I could afford - rice and peas no kidding
Advice appreciated....I just want to pay what is required
I'm not a great expert on the financial side of things I'm afraid, but there is a complaints and appeals procedure that you could follow if you feel you've been unfairly treated.
I do seem to recall that there is this 25% threshold before they will reassess, but hopefully someone with more knowledge than me can give you some pointers. Best of luck with it.
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