can csa reduce payments to cover travel expenses

Swagger1980

karenx wrote: »

Is the £1481 your take home pay? If so that wil be the figure used. Your travel to work has nothing to do with maintenance so wont be taken into account if you are on CS2

My take home pay is £1054.79 but that is because my season ticket loan comes out through my wages. Therefore if the season ticket was not deducted then I would take home £1481.83

Swagger1980

HappyMJ wrote: »

That's not excessive. The HMRC allows 45p per mile to cover mileage expenses from business income. At that rate it's equivalent to about 12,000 miles per year. 200 working days would therefore mean up to about 30 miles each way. As the DWP requires a jobseeker to accept work up to 90 minutes away as reasonable travel to work time you could just about travel 30 miles into London in 90 minutes. Have you considered moving closer to London to reduce your travel costs? Your rent would increase but your travel will go down. A monthly bus pass would then only be £68.40.

Do you not think I have looked into that. My rent would go up almost £650 per month for a crummy single bed house in SE1. It far outweighs the cost of moving closer & savings on travel etc.

I don't know what you are on about with the mileage thing. HMRC 45p rate is for business miles and not getting to and from work. Besides I have to get the train as I do not drive. I pay almost a third of my take home pay in travel! Take the CSA payment workd out on the higher level of take home and that leaves me with £831 or so. My rent is £575 and bills and debts are £190 so that leaves £66 to buy food and clothes every month. I do without clothes most months. If someone on beneifits gets that every week how do you think that is affordable?

Swagger1980

clearingout wrote: »

you can push it through court. Money and contact are treated separately. Your child needs financial support regardless of whether or not you see her. If the two were connected, we would have thousands of NRPs choosing not to see their children and not paying maintenance which if course is unacceptable.

I empathize with the situation, though. It's very hard and I can understand why you might stop paying. It is one of those situations where 'two wrongs don't make a right' however.

That wouldn't be the case if the NRP had to prove that they wanted to see the child and it was the PWC who was stopping this. You could put rules in place where the NRP couldn't get away with not seeing the child simply to avoid paying. If the NRP didn't keep to their end of the bargain the PWC could provide proof and get access to the money through the CSA. If it was the other way around then the funding should be stopped unless the PWC has a reason to stop access.

clearingout

Swagger1980 wrote: »

That wouldn't be the case if the NRP had to prove that they wanted to see the child and it was the PWC who was stopping this. You could put rules in place where the NRP couldn't get away with not seeing the child simply to avoid paying. If the NRP didn't keep to their end of the bargain the PWC could provide proof and get access to the money through the CSA. If it was the other way around then the funding should be stopped unless the PWC has a reason to stop access.

it's not an unreasonable response. But the issue is how you 'police' it and there are huge moral issues around a 'nanny state' intervening in family affairs. The court system exists to deal with contact issues and is pretty good at recognising where one party is being obstructive. You can't force someone to see a child if they don't want to - probably as destructive as not seeing a child at all, only more in your face and obvious. And how do you provide 'proof' that a NRP didn't turn up for contact? Fine if you can ask the child, but you can't ask a 5 month old baby and children are perfectly capable of lying in these situations if given the right 'incentive'.

You don't necessarily need a solicitor to go to court - have a look at Families Need Fathers for help and advice.

PreludeForTimeFeelers

Swagger1980 wrote: »

Hi,

Does anyone know if the CSA will allow a variation for excessive Travel to Work costs.

I earn a net income of £1481.34 which is fine however it costs me £418.23 to travel to London each month so I actually take home £1054.79 net.

Obviously I am not going to be able to make rent etc if they base it on the higher amount. It's going to be touch an go based on the lower amount but hey I suspect that the CSA will not allow this to be taken into account . If my fears are correct I will have to get a second job?

Is your case on CS2? If so, then they will only look at your net income usually.

neverdespairgirl

Swagger1980 wrote: »

Do you not think I have looked into that. My rent would go up almost £650 per month for a crummy single bed house in SE1. It far outweighs the cost of moving closer & savings on travel etc.

My rent is £575 and bills and debts are £190 so that leaves £66 to buy food and clothes every month.

Does it have to be SE1? Couldn't you find somewhere near-ish to SE1 and save a lot on travel?

Even in SE1, you could get a 1 bed flat for about £850 a month.

kingfisherblue

The CSA do not take into account housing costs or travel to work on CSA2. Nor do they take into account debts.

jojo_2012_2

I don't see why NR parent shouldn't have to contribute financially to the upbringing of the child based on 18 miles a week, I'm sure the parent who is raising the child travels far more and doesn't complain.

J.D._2

missmontana wrote: »

If you are a non-resident parent, we might look at the amount of child maintenance again if you have special expenses of more than £10 a week, or £15 if your income is £200 or more, for:

keeping in contact with your children (for example, if the parent with care has moved a long way away).




18 miles isn't really a long way! But i guess with the prices of petrol going up, the NRP might raise the issue.

Hi You sound like you know what your talking about! At last! I have been trying to find some straight answers about this subject but all i seem to find are vague descriptions and i really could use some facts for peace of mind. Do you know how they calculate the reduction for fuel cost? My costs are £130 pcm or £30 per week. The distance is 115 miles and my child stays with me over 52 nights (£40 pw base cost by csa online calculator). Also is it a straight 15% of your annual salary if over £200 pw? sounded nice and simple but have read contradictory information and not sure whats right. Any help gratefully recieved!
Thanks.

pixiemnx

Hi You sound like you know what your talking about! At last! I have been trying to find some straight answers about this subject but all i seem to find are vague descriptions and i really could use some facts for peace of mind. Do you know how they calculate the reduction for fuel cost? My costs are £130 pcm or £30 per week. The distance is 115 miles and my child stays with me over 52 nights (£40 pw base cost by csa online calculator). Also is it a straight 15% of your annual salary if over £200 pw? sounded nice and simple but have read contradictory information and not sure whats right. Any help gratefully recieved!
Thanks.

Hi JD
My partner is the NRP and we travel every other weekend a total of 420 miles to collect and return his daughter from the PWC.

We submitted petrol reciepts to the CSA as it costs us a full tank of fuel to to these journeys each time. The variation was refused!!!!

Aparently if you have the child for one night a year its classed as shared care and you only get the discount (£5 a month in our case) for this.

We were told that you cannot get both and ultimatly its the CSA's decission as to which you receive.
Then again they seem to chop and change their minds every time we cal them. Im sure they dont know their !!! from their elbow and make it all up as they go along. Im currently looking at taking legal action against them for all the hassel they have caused to myself. ( my own case not my partners, But dont get me started on that one):mad: