CSA assessment incorrect

Markee

I get paid a salary calendar monthly and the CSA have just come back to me with a re assessment.

They calculated this from a monthly payslip I submitted.

I have two children so am obliged to pay 20% of my net salary.

Without going into details about figures, they have actually calculated my monthly payment to be 22% of my net salary.

I believe this is because they use some magic formula to make their calculation to a weekly amount then just multiply the weekly amount by four to get a monthly amount.

My argument is that my employer doesn't pay me an extra 2% I am not entitled too, so why should I pay the CSA an extra 2%? This is fraud, surely?

Can anyone advise on what me best course of action is?

(incidentally, this exact situation happened a few years ago and when I questioned it they said they would go away and check their calculations. When they came back to me they admitted there had been an error and agreed with my figures - hope this happens again!).

Maybe this is a little hidden gotcha to pay for their services that non-savvy people don't pick up on?

Thank you!

guruchelles

I'm pretty sure they don't just multiply a weekly amount by four to get a monthly amount. In fact I've been told that when they have to convert weeks into calendar months (by multiplying by 52 and dividing by 12) they're not even allowed to round up fractions of pennies that may result; they have to adjust payments in that case so that the first payment may be different to subsequent ones. They're very precise in that regard.

That said, mistakes do happen so be sure to check. Did you only give them one payslip? Did it have some overtime on it? Did the monthly figure reflect what the 'paid to date this tax year' would suggest it should be?

Markee

guruchelles wrote: »

That said, mistakes do happen so be sure to check. Did you only give them one payslip? Did it have some overtime on it? Did the monthly figure reflect what the 'paid to date this tax year' would suggest it should be?

That's a good point. I sent in one payslip but that does reflect my monthly take home pay (I'm salaried and dont get paid for any overtime or bonus).

However, last year up until June I was running my own car with a car allowance (I now have a company car) so my pay to date would not reflect what was on my payslip.

Would they take that into account though? Surely they should only take into account the latest payslip(s) as like anything else circumstances do change.

Fission

"Net pay" in the everyday sense and "net pay" for child support law purposes need not be the same thing.

For child support, your net pay is your gross minus income tax and national insurance paid on it, and less any pension contributions you are making.

But in addition to that, many employees have other sorts of deduction and tend to think of their net pay as meaning net of those deductions too. Example might be union dues, Save As You Earn, charitable deductions or social club fees. It isn't hard to see how liability might be 20% of one of those but higher than 20% of the other one.