Child Tax Credit - how much can they take?

chriszzz

kelloggs36 wrote: »

But what many NRPPs complain about is that they resent the impact that the costs to the PWC entails which means their families suffer. Well, the solution to that is to decide whether or not you a) love your partner enough to take the sacrifices that come with being a step parent are and b) whether you can truely afford to have children yourselves. It is a stark reality of getting together with a person who already has children and hard choices have to be made. If you want to have children, then nobody is stopping you, but you cannot expect the children who already exist to have to suffer because of it - they have already suffered with the breakup and the fact that they only have limited contact (even half and half is limited) with both parents. In the PWC household, the new partner is already taking on the financial responsibility automatically - no NRPP seems to care about that, they normally see it as being a reason to reduce their support! The children are the PWC's and the NRP's and therefore they should continue to support their children from birth until whatever age is deemed necessary - at the moment it is 19. If the PWC doesn't work then the new partner will be paying her share, but that doesn't negate the NRP's responsibility in any way.

I agree with one thing and that is nrp should pay for their child/ren and that it is there responsibility but its not a fair way of doing this , for example a colleague whom i work with her brother recently split from his ex, they have three children. He had to leave the family home with nothing, had to leave what he too worked hard for and start all over again, taking into consideration that he has to pay just under 200 a month maintenance , now that might not seem alot for three children. He is paid fortnightly and after tax and child support his net income is 309.00. his outgoings for the fortnight is eg

130 rent
39 council tax
23 water
25 electric
20 gas
237

He is supose to furnish his flat, buy food and then whatever else he needs to live on, some days he had to walk to work, needless to say he only lasted 3months and realised he just couldnt afford to live independently, He had to ask his parents if he could go back and live at home with them.

My colleagues brother was working 40hrs a week and just could not afford to be the man he once was, his ex was having affairs behind his back and he lost out.

So there are cases like this are quite disturbing, not every nrp has lots of money to start all over again.

space_rider

I gave up on the CSA many years ago.I used to ring them every Friday just after 6pm trying to get money from a NRP. After 2 years I gave up. It just wasn`t worth my energy. I hear stories from many men who say they are paying and the CSA just want more and more. I would have been happy with just enough to pay school dinners! My youngest is now 9. Maybe the tories will be able to do something so all children of NRP are treated equally. Every now and again I get a letter to say that because the NRP has other children there is no money for mine so they assess that I should get £0.00. It cost more than that to send the letters.

shell_542

I think that's what causes a lot of issues with child support. It seems to be forgotten that NRPs have to run a home as well. Take for example me and my husband. His income per month pays the essential bills. Our mortgage is not extortionate. Most other costs, food, petrol, clothes when needed etc come from our child tax credits and child benefit. So if we were to split, for him to run a home himself, he would have slightly less gas bill a month, slightly less electric, slightly less council tax but then his food and petrol etc would have to come out of his wages as well. So if he then had to pay maintenance, to our PWC and me, on top, I'm not sure where this money would come from.

Its awful that some NRPs earning stupid money don't want to contribute towards their kids, but some people on much lower wages actually find it difficult to afford to pay out extra.

kelloggs36

Dancing_Shoes wrote: »

This is an interesting debate;)
Our pwc is better off financially now they are divorced than she was when they were together due to the fact that my husband earns alot more money and the money she gets is more than the income she had before. She has chosen not to work as she has quite happily told us that she will not work until our money stops:rolleyes:, this is of no interest to me as I choose to have more income for the benefit of my children which I have earned myself (nothing to do with nrp). When I got together with my husband I was very honest in saying that I would always help with their children emotionally but as I wanted children of my own I would not be helping financially and he was fully supportive of this as he said that quite rightly their children are not my children
I agree that when you get together with someone that has children this is a consideration but I don't see why it should effect anyone's decision when having children as long as they (nrpp) have their moneyNo it isn't - they have decided they can afford it, and it is fine! That isn't the problem
Our pwc has ensured that their children lose out because they have no contact with their father where our children have a fantastic relationship with their dad but this was her choice not ours:mad:

It is very sad when parents withhold contact for no reason - I can't understand that at all. All they are doing, is getting back at the ex, but hurting the children whilst doing it - pathetic,

Soubrette

shell_542 wrote: »

So if he then had to pay maintenance, to our PWC and me, on top, I'm not sure where this money would come from.

I think you'll find the money paid to the current PWC would go down. Assuming no arrears he only has to find a maximum of 25% (for 3 or more children), this is shared out no matter how many children he's had once the maximum of 3 is reached from a CSA point of view.

Its awful that some NRPs earning stupid money don't want to contribute towards their kids, but some people on much lower wages actually find it difficult to afford to pay out extra.

It is awful that those who easily can afford to support their children seem to be the ones who are less willing to put their hands in their pockets - I suppose the well paid have more loop holes than us wage slaves:mad: . Again though people might feel the same about accidental pregnancies within a family - a friend of mine ended up with 4 under 5 when the last accidental pregnancy turned out to be twins - they were girls , the eldest a boy and the middle a girl - so the scope of hand me downs was limited and they'd given away all their baby stuff :eek:

Although if you listened to mitchaa - children can easily be paid for with their child benefit so what are we all moaning about

I love my children but how glad I am that my lovely bloke shows no interest in babies.:beer:

Sou

shell_542

I see what you mean Sou and its why, in my opinion, the 15/20/25% thing doesn't work. If we had more children, our tax credits may go up, our child benefit goes up but our wages do not. Its what happened to us. My 2 children suddenly had less money spent on them as some of our money was being sent off elsewhere. Obviously I'm speaking from my own experiences and they are my children were "here first" yet when another child appeared and needed child support, our income didn't go up. But our outgoings did so yes, my children do lose out. Its not fair but then again, life isn't is it? They are still happy children, all 3 of them I our life.

loobyloo0302

Soubrette wrote: »

I think you'll find the money paid to the current PWC would go down. Assuming no arrears he only has to find a maximum of 25% (for 3 or more children), this is shared out no matter how many children he's had once the maximum of 3 is reached from a CSA point of view.

I've always been curious about this. So how does that work then? Say the NRP is paying 2 PWC - the first PWC has the 2 oldest children and the second PWC has the 3 youngest children. PWC number 1 made the claim first but the second PWC has 3 children as a pose to 2. The CSA take a maximum of 25% based on 3 or more children... so how does the child support get split? Do the oldest get the majority or the 3 children??? hmmmm..

Soubrette

It is true that you would receive more child benefit and possibly even tax credits dependent on income level - but also even harder to find a job (one friend I know has 3 children and they caught chickenpox one after another - 6 weeks off work although luckily she worked from home at the time). Despite mitchha's assurances, I spend more than my child related benefits directly on the children (let alone any proportion of my normal bills) so it could be argued that as that child is not living with you, it may actually still not be as expensive as one of your own.

I'm not entirely convinced though, I think we tend to spend what we can afford on our children which is for some families more and some families less than our child related benefits depending on our household income.

Assuming an NRP is in a low income bracket such as chriszz's example or yourselves - it gets very hard to suggest a solution that is going to be fair to everyone involved.

Sou

Soubrette

loobyloo0302 wrote: »

I've always been curious about this. So how does that work then? Say the NRP is paying 2 PWC - the first PWC has the 2 oldest children and the second PWC has the 3 youngest children. PWC number 1 made the claim first but the second PWC has 3 children as a pose to 2. The CSA take a maximum of 25% based on 3 or more children... so how does the child support get split? Do the oldest get the majority or the 3 children??? hmmmm..

I have to admit I'm not sure - space rider seems to be saying that she is entitled to nothing due to previous children but that doesn't seem right either

The only two families I know where the NRP seemed to spend a lot of time seeding the world and thus leaving multiple PWCs, both have totally non compliant NRPs.

Sou

Soubrette

loobyloo0302 wrote: »

I've always been curious about this. So how does that work then? Say the NRP is paying 2 PWC - the first PWC has the 2 oldest children and the second PWC has the 3 youngest children. PWC number 1 made the claim first but the second PWC has 3 children as a pose to 2. The CSA take a maximum of 25% based on 3 or more children... so how does the child support get split? Do the oldest get the majority or the 3 children??? hmmmm..

The first link I found states that the number of qualifying children remains the same no matter who the PWC is - and the child support is spread equally. Not sure how this would work for say 3 families where there are 3 children and then 1 child and then 1 child.

Perhaps kelloggs would know for sure?

Sou