Maintenance + Nursery Fees

Hi, I hope you can help. My names Rod and I'm currently going through divorce proceedings. We have one son, and at the moment we are trying to figure out the best way of sharing parenting time with him.

My soon to be ex wife works part time and my son goes to nursery 2.5 days per week. Say my son goes to nursery on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, I would like to have him from Sunday through until Wednesday. His going to nursery would allow this.

At the moment his mother pays the nursery fees as she receives around 80% of the cost through child tax credits (the childcare element, child benefit and tax credits) + maintenance + her own wage. His mother is saying that if we do that I should contribute to his childcare fees on top of the maintenance we agreed - even though she will still claim the tax credits, and even though she will still work those days. Her reasoning is that he would be at nursery for my benefit rather than hers (even though she will still works those days!)

Do you think this is reasonable?

Apologies if this doesn't make too much sense!

Childcare is a minefield.

She will, at best, be receiving 80% of the nursery fees through Tax Credits so that leaves something to pay.

A shared care arrangement, in my view, means that the parent with care for that day needs to arrange and pay for the childcare or any other activity he/she chooses the child to partake in. It is essentially up to you to decide what to do with your time with your child. So if you have your son on nursery days and you benefit from that because you're going out to work, I would say it's your responsiblity to pick up the bill.

For argument's sake, your wife could decide to work full time, leave the early part of the week to you if that's your time with your son (so you could take him out of nursery if you didn't want to foot the bill, go part time, leave him with your mum, find a childminder as they tend to be cheaper...)and the rest of the week use the Tax Credit to cover 80% of her time (ie refuse point blank to say your child is in full time care to Tax Credits so you have to pick up the full cost)...would you contribute to the remaining 20% if this was the case? If not, that's exactly what you're asking her to do, isn't it?!

You are essentially saying that you would only have your child on those days because he has somewhere else to go, rather than go part-time yourself and share the care of your child in that way? So you benefit from a full-time income but your wife is still stuck with part-time work? would you be happy for her to go full-time or would you start suggesting that this would impact on your child?

You note that she also gets tax credit and child benefit and that you will pay some maintenance. Is the expectation that she clothes your child, toys pays for school trips, music lessons, swimming lessons, maintains a car to run him around etc. etc.? If so, do you think the tax credit, child benefit and your maintenance will cover that cost? If you think it will, you're still left with a full time wage minus 15% maintenance and she's got a part-time wage....is that fair?

I am being difficult for the sake of it! I don't think there are any right or wrong answers, really. But I do think it's important you realise Working Tax Credit is not covering the full cost of childcare at least and if you're both able to go to work whilst your son is in childcare, surely you should at least be splitting that additional expense on a 50/50 basis?

My ex wife receives around £800 a month in benefits plus maintenance + wage. I receive nothing other than my wages. With all of that she has a similar income to mine. Plus when he is with me (which isn't just whilst he's at nursery) I buy clothes, feed him, take him out, etc. I don't just get him out of bed take him to nursery, pick him up and put him back to bed.

I completely understand what you are saying, to be honest it's not a massive issue, however - what exactly are maintenance payments for? To help pay for the care of my son? Or just to buy clothes and school trips? I could turn around and say I'll only have my son at weekends, my son then loses out and financially things stay the same as they are now.

Again, thanks for your reply, and I'm sure we will come to an agreement soon enough.

I don't think it is unreasonable to be expected to pay half of the fees that are not covered by benefits.
If she is suggesting you pay half the full fees while she claims the tax credit....then that is certainly not reasonable.

LB

If you assume that the benefits are gained as a result of her being a single parent, then you both benefit. She should pay half of hte remainder, and you should pay the other half. I accept it rarely works like this.

OR, you could use a salary sacrifice scheme through your work if it is available to make a contribution direct to the childcare place. That way you know where the money is going and you save on the tax

it would make sense to pay half of the remaining 20% in other words 10% each.

Well I have had major dealings with tax credits.
From my experince if you are both going for total shared care (you have the child Sun - Wed) then your ex would lose the child care element of her benefit anyway.
Dont phone the TCO as they give false info and really dont know what they're talking about 99% of the time...your best bet would be to make an appointment with your local CAB tax credits expert (they all should have one) who'll let you know.
Your ex could get into deep water if she continued to receive the child care element if you were forking out for the chil care and also if it's shared parenting ie/ 50/50 they'll probably say it's up to you to foot the cost of child care on the days you have the child...and if this isnt financially possible for you you'll have to relook at your contact days.
Lou xx