WA Child Support Assessment Changed?

[Hoang Trang]

Have any of you fellows had your child support assessment changed on their own free will? Mine has almost doubled my last year's taxable income!

My ex is not happy my income has decreased due to me working part time to be at home with my children. I'm gobsmacked as everything she said is pure speculation and given the fact she has already lied and deceived Centrelink and them already.

 

[Rod]

Talk to Child Support again, see if they will review their decision.

If that fails, it will pay to talk to a lawyer about how to appeal their decision. If your post is accurate you may find they will change their mind once a lawyer is involved, lawyers can be useful!

 

[Hoang Trang]

Thanks mate. I haven't slept a wink last night about this. The new assessment is actually higher then what I have ever earned in my whole life.

My partner is a very hard working lady who now supports our family. She recently opened up a successful business, brought a new car and we both brought our new home together. Ex seems to think it's all mine despite providing evidence that it's not.

 

[MartyK]

I agree that you would be better off speaking to a lawyer.

Something which may have played a part in the recent decision is the present care arrangements i.e. that the children are now living primarily with their mother. While I realise you are still in Court, based on the current circumstances, this would in effect mean that your earning capacity would likely be higher than that of only a part time employee. In certain 'special circumstances', the CS can take a new partners income/assets into account when determining that the financial resources of a parent.

 

[Hoang Trang]

That's understandable. But what baffles me is that my income has been changed to double!!??? There is no mention of my partners income/assets. You'd think it would be changed back to my income whist full time working. The change new change has been implemented until 2018.

I will make an appeal in the meantime and see what the outcome is. I still have the SEW and hopefully it's in my favour and this can be settled by consent rather then trial

 

[AllForHer]

You need to provide CSA with a request to review their decision about your taxable income and provide your own evidence of your income, such as pay slips or last year's tax return.

Your partner's income is irrelevant. Don't provide any information at all about what your partner is earning. She isn't liable for child support, only you and your ex are.

 

[MartyK]

Your partner's income is irrelevant. .

Not always so in circumstances of suspected transfer or minimisation of income.

Based on your further response Hoang I gather this does not apply to your situation.

 

[Hoang Trang]

You need to provide CSA with a request to review their decision about your taxable income and provide your own evidence of your income, such as pay slips or last year's tax return.

Your partner's income is irrelevant. Don't provide any information at all about what your partner is earning. She isn't liable for child support, only you and your ex are.

When she made the appeal I gathered all my evidence to them. Ownership of car and business under my partners name, house co-owned and mostly importantly my last years taxable income. When I had a discussion with them it was basically " I don't believe your true income, how can your partner afford all this".

With my current court case and now this it's just so stressful and really hard to cope. I'm physically and emotionally drained. Just have to keep thinking about my children and not give up not matter what

 

[Rob Legat - SBPL]

These comments are from my own experience in dealing with CSA. They notoriously get it wrong, fail to follow their own policies (or the legislation), and apply a different standard depending on whether you are male or female. I've had to take them to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal three time so far because of their failure to get their decisions right in the most basic ways. In each case I've raised formal objection with them and they have failed to revise the errors.

The first time, they ignored a clear requirement in the legislation. We had protracted arguments about requirement, and the CSA kept quoting their guidelines at me - despite them not being relevant. I took them to the Social Security Appeals Tribunal (before it was incorporated with the AAT), and CSA's legal department made submissions with agreed with my arguments completely.

The second time, they ignored inconsistencies in the other parent's statements - despite having them in writing. They preferred the view which gave the other parent the best outcome; disregarding my submissions, the last ones by the other parent (which agreed with mine) and the representations of the other parent's partner. Once again, I brought this to their attention via objection and it was disregarded. I took the matter to the AAT and they ruled in my favour.

I can't comment on the third one, as it is ongoing. All I will say is that the errors are even more basic than the above two.

I don't want to blow my own horn about the above, but rather point out that (at least from what I've seen) CSA can and do make horrendous decisions; and refuse to back down from them. Check what you've received and their reasoning very carefully or, better yet, get a lawyer to do it for you. Don't take as gospel what they tell you. Check the guide (Using the Child Support Guide | Child Support Guide and the legislation (CHILD SUPPORT (ASSESSMENT) ACT 1989 and CHILD SUPPORT (REGISTRATION AND COLLECTION) ACT 1988). The guide should point you to the correct provisions.

 

[sammy01]

I agree totally with the last post. The good news - appeal right away, then appeal to AAT. Now I understand the previous poster is a solicitor, that would make dealing with AAT easier. But I have been there too, I was pretty confident that i'd win because CSA had totally stuffed up, costing me thousands and if I didn't win it would have been 10's of thousands by the time the kids grew up.

AAT was fair, reasonable and free. I would not even bother with talking to solicitor about this one.

The other good news - once I won the AAT instructed CSA to stop all payments to the ex until the overpayments were re-credited to me....