morning all!
bit of a long story so ill keep it as short as poss. ive 2 kids to a nutjob ex who i split from years ago, for a few months i had a little custody too them but as they do she stopped it when i met someone new. i took her to court and had everything thrown at me she even used my lads disability as an excuse for contact stopping, i paid approx 10 grand for the courts to see through it and award overnight in my favour , thats including fees for sorting a safe house for my lads autism etc. she then went back on the court order and i simply couldnt afford to carry on! it also destroyed my kids not been allowed and every time i had to return them it was destroying them , the tears and stress i saw them in every week made me choose not to carry on contact, as it broke the 3 of us every week and i thought theyd be better off without.
so i set up cms direct pay out of my wages at this time, as i was paying her cash in hand and thought she would try and shaft me this way to. for the last 3 years ive not seen my kids but ive paid on time every time, for a year i even overpayed by quite a decent amount.
now im in full time employment for a company and recieving regular wages the usual way, but for the last few months ive been working towards going self employment, and in approx 6 weeks will be finally making the jump. however im worried that my cms payments will stay the same and if they do im gonna struggle making the jump. there is barely any info online to help with the advise i need.
basically i need info on..... will my payments stay same as they are now or go down, how do i work our what ill be earning to inform cms when i honestly dont know until things have settled in my new role? ive read posts online stating that as soon as i let cms know ive gone self employed they suspend my payments until the end of the calendar year when i will finally know my earnings for the that year? is this true? will it be then backdated for her?
many thanks for reading!
mark
hi,
what CMS are likely to do, is when you tell them you have gone self-employed, they will base your income on your current income, and expect you to continue paying until you do your next self-assessment tax return.
If you disagree with them because your self-employed income is so low, they will ask you to get an accountant to do a projected earnings for you. If you don't do that, then they will just wait for your next self-assessment return to see how much you earned, then re-calculate your maintenance based on that. They will not suspend your maintenance payments unless your jobless or on benefits.
@bill337 thats what i thought to be honest, i didnt think that the twats would seriously suspend it for a year! i always want to do right by financially supporting my kids but i know for a fact they dont see a penny of it, id rather be lumping into trust fund so they get every penny one day in the future.
cheers for your reply pal
Hi
A potential option is to consider signing on for universal credit as the CMS will be notified of this (and you will notify them too) and drop your payments for £28 (if you are eligible and below capital requirements etc) stay on UC for 2 months and then set up as self employed (officially via companies House, bank accounts, etc) notify CMS who will then work out payments based on new income (it is much more complicated to work out gross income when self employed due to factoring in business expenses, salary, dividends etc)...
All the best..
@Daddyup cheers pal, it’s one route I was looking into going on to uc and self employed after 2-3 months . I don’t know wether the fact I’m effectively quitting my job comes into to wether I qualify or not though, from what I can gather there’s a certain period until I’m able to claim
cheers for your reply
Hi
Yes, if you voluntarily leave a job you may not qualify but I believe you can still apply for it and they may award you a nil amount which you can use for CMS purposes... I guess I made the suggestion with you saying you want to go self employed and usually there is a lead time before any revenue comes in...