is child maint actually fair on the paying parent?

I earn more than my ex, but only by about 20%. He has no overnights and CHOOSES only to see the children for 4hrs per week.

He gives me the CSA rate worked out on half his income (his salary) but not on his dividend income, which makes up the rest. I have worked out that even taking child benefit and tax credit into account, and not factoring in the difficult to work out how to apportion housing/bills etc split, over the next 3 years I will pay £35K more than he will towards the upkeep of our children. I pay 80% and he pays 20%. I also pay a much higher % of my overall income on the children than he does.

The vast majority of this is childcare. He has more far more disposable income than I do, and more oportunity to cut back his luxuries, I don't have any luxuries and anything I could cut back directly affects the kids - e.g. housing I am at the very edge, in the only cheap bit of the catchment area for the only good secondary school in a radius of 50 miles.

I agree that CSA calculations are overly simplistic, and seem routed in an old "norm", where one parent (usually dad) earned far more and the other parent (usually mum) had the vast majority of the caring responsibilities. Clearly this isn't the norm for everyone, but it isn't always the NRP that this is unfair on.

My belief is simple and its the way the CSA payments work from what I have seen.

You have more nights you pay less...