Hi,
My wife and I are separating, and have agreed to split childcare 50/50. The CSA calculator talks of being or not being the main care giver, and the calculator applies this information to the amount suggested, but there is no option for parents with 50/50 split. So do I just complete the 175 days or more field, or do we both complete this field and I pay the difference? Or is there another set of figures for the 50/50 split? Very grateful for any advice.
The CSA assume that the parent in receipt of the Child Benefit will be the main carer. However, rather than use the CSA calculator at the moment, is there any chance that your ex will agree to a family based arrangement? This is where you agree between yourselves what the maintenance will be, and seems to be the best option if you can work this out between yourselves.
Otherwise, if you use the CSA calculation with joint care, the non resident parent pays 15%/20%/25% of takehome pay for 1/2/3+ children, with a 50% reduction, less a further £7 per week for each child.
'non-resident parent'? My question is that there isn't a non-resident parent - or is that just naivety on my part? We've talked about a family agreement, but that would be based on the csa calculator. Family allowance could be claimed for one child each, but i thought she could have that as part of the maintenance?
For the purposes of the CSA, there is always a resident parent - This is the parent that receives the child benefit.
You could either not use the CSA as if you are sharing 50/50 is there a need for maintenance. Instead think about a parenting plan, and agree who pays for what - i.e. after school activities, school uniform, school trips, clothes, toys, birthday presents etc - anything really outside of housing costs.
Or if you have 2 children you could receive child benefit for one child each. This allows you both to claim tax credits etc if you can.
Then you can again choose to use the CSA or not for maintenance. If you do use the CSA, then you would each pay maintenance for one child.
If you are both on equal salaries then no maintenance will be payable
If you earn more than your ex you will pay her
If your ex earns more than you, you will receive money.
I think if I was you I would have one child each in respect of the cb, this makes you equal and it would be better to do a family based arrangement, why get csa involved when its a amicable split, you can have it drawn up legally, which I advise as things can change, especially when one of you moves on to another relationship. I think what they mean by a non resident parent is if one of you is moving from the family home as this where the children were before you split. I would also advise you that as the children get older things change and there wishes come into it more and they might stay with one parent more then the other. I have had the 50/50 split and it worked well till about 13 then we just listened to what he wanted not wanted we wanted, I was very lucky as my ex was very flexible
If the day-to-day care of a child is exactly equal between a paying parent and a receiving parent, the paying parent does not have to pay any child maintenance for that child, under the new child maintenance service rules. (See link below, middle of page 29)
This rule is part of the new child maintenance service guidance, so would apply to all claims going through this service (not CSA)
From 29 July 2013 the Child Maintenance Service will be taking new claims from people who have two children or more, and the children have the same parents. This means that if you are in this group and have your children 50/50, your claim would go through the Child Maintenance Service, and you would not have to pay maintenance.
The CSA will eventually close, and is being replaced with the Child Maintenance Service. This means that over the next few years, everyone using the CSA will have their cases closed, and will have to choose whether to use the Child Maintenance Service instead (as opposed your own personal arrangement)
Once the new system appears to be working well, it will be open to all new claimants. This is expected to be around the end of the 2013.
That's not clear...if you look at page 27 then it states in that chart that 50% plus £7 for each child is the deduction, but indicates that maintenance is still paidThe paragraph on page 29 that you are referring to is situated under the heading concerning children in local authority care.
Yes there are changes coming but you also failed to mention that to use this service there will be a charged levied for both parents. I think it's 7% for the receiving parent and 20% for the paying parent...there is a sticky about this that goes into much more detail.
I would certainly seek clarification of this though, perhaps Child Maintenance Options would like to comment.
PLEASE NOTE:
I've just had a look at the Gingerbread link provided in the sticky at the top of this section....it's no longer available! However I have supplied another link to current Gingerbread campaigning and information about the changes coming in 2014 which can be found at the end of the first post in the sticky.
One change I notice is that through Gingerbreads campaigning for a fairer deal the 7% charge on the receiving parents maintenance payment has been reduced to 4%
thanks for your input.
The line
Q: What happens if the day-to-day care of a child is equal between a
paying parent and a receiving parent?
A: In this situation, the paying parent does not have to pay any child
maintenance for that child.
......has nothing to do with local authority care, although it sits after the question about Local Authority. Its important to mention that this small paragraph talks about EQUAL (50/50) shared care, rather than generic shared care, which could be just one day a week.
They use the term Paying and Receiving Parents in this Q&A line. I have spoken to the CMS to get clarification and they agree this is right. (we agree in that it seems a bit tagged on). Naturally if this isn't the case then we`d like to be advised accordingly.
I would say then that a court order that states "shared care arrangement" as opposed to "shared residence" would be required to prove that care is 50/50. I'm not clear about which parent will receive the child benefit payment where there is this 50/50 split...and as the CSA works on the premise that the parent that is in receipt of the child benefit is the parent with care and therefore the other parent is called the NRP (non resident parent) and it is this parent that is liable to pay maintenance.
It also states in the link you provided that there has to be agreement between both parents about the amount of time a child spends with either parent, if agreement isn't reached then the maintenance payment will be worked out at a 1/7th deduction per week. If a parent has asked the CSA to intervene it's usually because of disagreement and an inability to come to a family based arrangement. This is a stumbling block, as its already apparent that some parents with care are quite happy to lie about the amount of time the other parent has the child to generate a bigger maintenance payment. Also there are some parents with care that will actually reduce the amount of overnight time with the NRP to gain further maintenance.