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Good Morning . I separated from my wife in 2004 and have regularly travelled between Southampton and Margate in Kent to collect my three children for the weekend and return them back every other weekend including all holidays Xmas and Bank Holidays .
Average 17000 a year to maintain contact
Paying my own fuel expenses..
I pay my maintenance through the CSA and now the CMS . The CMS have informed that under the heading of Special Expenses I can claim the cost of fuel to keep contact with my children ?
Has this claim for fuel Expenses always been in place even through the CSA and I never been told of it ?
Interested to know if anyone has had the same situation and what was your outcome.
There has always been the option to offset travel expenses over a certain amount (I think £15 per week) against your income via a variation. The net effect on the maintenance is usually quite low, but on CSA figures, you would take the £15 per week off your expenses, so down to £16,250 of costs you could offset, and the net effect of that would be a reduction in maintenance of £3250 per year, or £270 per month.
However, I reckon that it's a 300 mile round trip, so twice each alternate weekend means about 16,000 miles a year, so I think they would be looking at saying your expenses should be much less than £1 per mile. However, the principle is the same whatever the figures.
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