CM changes now in force

Changes to the way child maintenance is assessed, collected and paid to recipients came into force yesterday(10 December 2012) under the powers of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008. It is the start of a process that seeks to replace the existing 1993 and 2003 schemes.

Under the new rules, assessment will use gross information sourced directly from HMRC (as set out in the Child Support Maintenance Calculation Regulations 2012). Where the payer is self-employed, current income will be defined as taxable profits from trade over an accounting period, usually running for one year.

Payments will be reviewed annually as, in the words of the Explanatory Memorandum to the SI:
"Most incomes do not change greatly from year to year and it is envisaged that apart from major changes, such as the addition of another child or the loss of a job, the maintenance liability will remain largely stable."

Where a review is called for there must be a fluctuation of 25% either way.


A raft of other changes also come into force today. For more detail you can read the explanatory notes to the commencement orders as below:

Child Support Maintenance Calculation Regulations 2012

Child Support (Meaning of Child and New Calculation Rules) (Consequential and Miscellaneous Amendment) Regulations 2012

www.gov.uk/child-maintenance/overview

It''s important people know that initially only new cases with four or more children in the same family will be assessed under the new scheme. Once this is found to be working satisfactorily the new rules will be applied to new cases with with two or more children. Then the changes will be applied to all new cases and eventually there will be a gradual transfer of the existing cases over a number of years.

Interesting.

Doubt if all this will make any difference to those who ignore CSA and try to get away with paying £0 for their own child.....

(Sorry, just fed up with chasing my ex)

Perin

There is talk of more severe penalty''s, taking passports ect.

The changes are quite positive, for one it closes the pensions loop whole, for ages a guy (usually) could simply funnel money into a pension to reduce the payment, using gross income now will prevent that.

Some states in America are far more pro active, many have a garnishing system to just take the money, we have similar but it seems to take an age to arrange, a better American idea is that if you don`t pay they sling you in jail for 30 days.

7.4.6 In equal shared care cases, a non-resident parent will be treated as such, if, and only if they provide day to day care to a lesser extent than the parent with care.
Where the parent with care is receiving child benefit in respect of a qualifying
child they are assumed to be the main carer of the child in the absence of
evidence to the contrary.

Lots of double-negatives here but...

Can I assume from this, that
a) if a non-resident parent is not providing care to a lesser extent (ie. the same extent) they are not treated as a non-resident parent, and
b) if there is evidence to the contrary (ie. providing equal care), the parent with care is not assumed to be the main carer ?

a) yes b) yes

It is strange wording but it only really confirms the rules as they are now anyway.

I believe they are still taking pension payments into account.