Car allowance

Hello Bulldog

Unless a paying parent gets certain benefits, the child maintenance Service work out child maintenance using the paying parent’s 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.

Gross annual income is the paying parent’s yearly income before Income Tax and National Insurance are taken off, but after occupational or personal pension scheme contributions are taken away.

You can find detailed information about how the Child Maintenance Service work out maintenance here www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/upl...hild-maintenance.pdf.

As mentioned previously, it is possible that your ex-husband has spoken to the Child Support Agency (CSA), as when they were dealing with new applications, they used net income and not gross.

If you would like any further information about the Child Maintenance Service or the other options available, you can contact Child Maintenance Options, www.cmoptions.org. You will also find lots of tools and information designed to help you with your family-based arrangement on the website.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have a web application, ‘Sorting out separation’. It aims to make it much easier for separating and separated parents (and childless couples) to find the support they need, when and where they need it, and encourages them to collaborate on a range of issues. The link is www.wikivorce.com/divorce/Sorting-Out-Separation.html.

Regards

Sarah