Wife's income and child benefit

justontime

It's a disgrace that people are still on CSA1 so many years after it should have been phased out. There are losers on both sides with CSA1 but it's wrong that people have been stuck on a system with different rules for so long.

14march04

justontime wrote: »

It's a disgrace that people are still on CSA1 so many years after it should have been phased out. There are losers on both sides with CSA1 but it's wrong that people have been stuck on a system with different rules for so long.

Exactly this, hoping we see a change soon.

FBaby

FBaby, the system isn't fair

Well here you go then, accept this for your own predicament.

Personally, I find it unethetical that an nrp should find themselves less responsible for supporting their children because their ex and new partner earn more. Does it make them less a parent too?

My ex has the same attitude. Yes, my husband and I are much better off then my ex and his partner, does it make it ok not to contribute a penny towards them? Does it means that he should also relinquish a bit of his parental rights for the benefit of my husband, who after all, contribute more towards them than their father does?

In any case, my understanding of CSA1 is that it doesn't take your wife income into consideration of what should be paid to your children, it takes into consideration that they contribute towards YOUR costs, therefore leaving you with more disposable income to support your children. Sorry that your wife feels that this is worthy of leaving you.

justontime

FBaby wrote: »

In any case, my understanding of CSA1 is that it doesn't take your wife income into consideration of what should be paid to your children, it takes into consideration that they contribute towards YOUR costs, therefore leaving you with more disposable income to support your children. Sorry that your wife feels that this is worthy of leaving you.

It isn't that simple FBaby. The OP has a step child who will not be taken account of in the CSA1 calculation unless the protected income calculation applies (it doesn't in most cases).

I have been NRPP (on CSA1) for part of the past ten years (at other times I was the PWC partner - same children) and as I had three of my own children to provide for it's been tough. I will freely admit that I considered living separately from my husband in our more desperate moments because my children would have been significantly better off. I'm not suggesting that my step children should have received less than their dad paid before, but I didn't expect that they would get significantly more at the expense of my children. I care deeply about all our children and I have done everything in my power to support them over the years, I'm not a hard hearted NRPP. The point is that my children shouldn't have lost out financially.

Before anyone says that I should have thought about the consequences before I married, it's not that simple. I had considered all the pros and cons of finances, but as far as CSA1 is concerned even people who have been on the system for years don't understand it. I'd had no dealings with CSA and I naively expected fairness.

I think the new system is a lot fairer. It is right that the NRP should pay to support their children (and most do so willingly) but it is important for the children that the NRP should be able to rebuild their life and provide a loving and secure environment for their children.

FBaby

I do admit I don't know the ins and out of csa1 and indeed, I am surprised that when considering the contribution of the nrpp into the household, her children from previous relationship wouldn't be taken into account.

It doesn't take away that I am tired of nrpp who cry outrage that their income can be considered when this is and always has been the case of pwcp. Yet we never see posts from them. When the decision to stop CM to those earning over £60k and that affected nrpps, there wasn't a row of 'it's not fair, why should I be taxed because of my step-children' threads.

I am a huge partisan that when it comes to children, ONLY their direct parent income should be taken into consideration, but if one step parent is going to be penalised as a result, then I don't find it outrageous that so should the other.

justontime

FBaby wrote: »

It doesn't take away that I am tired of nrpp who cry outrage that their income can be considered when this is and always has been the case of pwcp. Yet we never see posts from them

PWCP income is not considered for CSA purposes.

I take your point that it is considered when the PWC claims other help for the child eg Tax Credits. However they only take the actual household income. If the NRPP claims tax credits, ema/16-19 bursary, student loans etc it is not based on the actual household income, it includes the significant chunk of NRP income which (quite rightly) has to be paid to the PWC in child support. This significantly disadvantages the children in the NRP household.

I don't think we will ever be able to achieve completely fair systems, but at least the new CSA scheme is simpler and fairer than the old ones.

FBaby

Not for CSA purposes but every other purposes and I don't think it matters much for the pwcp which agency it is.

The way they are most affected is if the pwc suddenly loses their job and the nrp earning is such that they are not entitled to any tax credits. The way it stands, the pwc can't turn to the nrp and says 'sorry, can't support our children any longer, so you will have to do so fully from now on, and don't care where you get the money from', it becomes the responsability of the pwcp to take that responsibility over.

The same when the nrp loses their job. They don't have to contribute any longer, the nrpp doesn't have to take over, so unless the pwc can make the difference up, it is again up to the pwcp to do so if the children are not to be affected.

I agree, there will never be a fair system, but I do get annoyed when nrpps come and moan that they have to contribute (usually in a very minor way if assessed on csa1) when many if not most pwcps do one way or the other.

justontime

But it is just the same in the NRP household if the NRPP loses their job the NRP would then be expected to support her and her children. We should keep in mind that in many cases these roles are not set in stone, many NRPs become PWCs (to the same children) at different points. Also a NRPP is often a PWC as well, meaning that the NRP is also a PWCP or even a PWC. So the lines are blurred and a lot of people experience the disadvantages from all angles.

As parents/step parents we just have to do the very best we can for all our children - and I honestly believe that the majority of people do exactly that. Unfortunately on any advice forum you will people facing problems, not the majority who are just getting on with it and making it work.

FBaby

Totally agree and in the case of a nrp who also happens to be a pwcp, the same applies. It is about the role, not the person.

Once again, I don't agree that nrpp should be involved in supporting their step-children, but then if nrpp are going to be so legally (whether they are pwcp too or not), then I don't find it outrageous that nrpps should be too.

Indeed, there will always be winner and losers in this situation depending on who is a nrp/pwcpp - pwc/nrpp and indeed, no system will ever be fair to everyone.

Unfortunately, I don't agree that the majority of parents put their children first financially, or at least do so equally. I hear of so many issues one way or the other, certainly much more than from those for whom it all works ok. I understand that it is probably instinctive to favour those children who reside with you, mainly because the parent knows where the money goes.

I always said that the csa should support nrp requesting some breakdown of how the maintenance is being used. Of course, it couldn't be done for every penny, but a general budget breakdown should be totally acceptable. Why would a pwc who definitely does spend all the maintenance on her kids have anything to hide especially if it could reassure the nrp.

13Kent

I appreciate that there are winners and losers on both sides of the CSA, in our case we were most definitely the losers, and the pwc the winner, although that being the case my husbands children were also winners, so it was a bit of a double edged sword as it were.

My husband's wife decided that she didn't want to be married to him any longer, she had a series of affairs, the first of which he 'ignored' to try and keep the family together, but eventually she decided that he had to leave his home and his children despite his best efforts. He was left heartbroken and almost destitute as she emptied their bank account into the bargain. When I met him all he had to his name was his job - thankfully he's always managed to keep in employment, a car, and the debts she'd run up in his name which to his horror he discovered he was liable for. He was still paying many of the household bills which were set up to come out of his account, and he was also voluntarily giving her maintenance for his children even if it left him so short of cash he often had to borrow the money to put fuel in the car so that he could go and visit his children.

The CSA got involved when she went on income support soon after they split. However once she realised that the money he was giving her would be taken into account on income support, she lied and told them he wasn't paying her anything and he was then sent a bill for thousands of pounds of arrears for money he'd already paid. Realising that she would then have to lose the maintenance he gave her if she was on income support she then went out and got herself a job. By that time the CSA were well and truly involved and there was no going back to a voluntary agreement as she was quids in as not only was he having to pay her the requested maintenance but also the additional arrears - which was money he'd already paid - and the CSA were not taking into account any other debts that she'd left him with that he was having to pay to try and stop himself ending up with CCJ's which would have destroyed his credit rating once and for all.

In our case on CSA1 the pwc's income has always been assessed as 'nil' even though her and her husband both work in good jobs. She was receiving the child care element of Tax Credits, and therefore it flagged up on the CSA system that she was on benefits and therefore had no income.

Her husband's income, and her child benefit and tax credits have never been taken into account as part of the household's income, even though her husband clearly contributes to their household income, and she was working As a nrp's wife, when we got married my income was taken into account on CSA1 and my husband's maintenance amount doubled to nearly £600 a month for 2 children (although my income was supposedly not taken into account for the calculation). Once we had a child our child was taken into consideration but so was our child benefit, so the maintenance needed dropped by only £20 once our child was born - even though I was no longer working. Even when our second child was born the assessment didn't change by much.

In addition to this unfairness, if we went on the CSA2 calculator and put in all the relevent details it showed that my husband's liability would be £280 a month. So on CSA1 we were paying more than double what the CSA would have requested had we been on CSA2. How is that fair?

The pwc on her 'nil' income manage to completely renovate her kitchen and bathroom, refurnish the whole house including carpets (the house that had previously been half my husbands, that he'd had to sign over to her in the divorce leaving him with nothing but the car to show for their 10 years of marriage and savings) - she didn't want that as she didn't drive. - Oh and landscape the garden. They all wore designer clothes, and they had the latest electronic gadgets, massive gas bbq, a huge flat screen tv that was hung on the wall, and numerous holidays abroad including 3 weeks in Disney Florida. And before anyone says it, yes of course his children got the benefit of this luxury.

Meanwhile we lived in rented accommodation as we couldn't get a mortgage as our £600 a month debt to the CSA was taken into account by mortgage companies, so we couldn't get on the mortgage ladder - not that we could have afforded a mortgage anyway with those outgoings. Meanwhile she was sitting pretty in a house which already had 10 years + equity in it. Our rented accommodation when there were just the two of us couldn't be a cheap 1 bed flat as we needed to provide space for the children to come and stay. We needed 3 bedrooms. Unfortunately when they did come to stay they were scathing of the fact that we had an old fashioned big fat tv, our clothes weren't designer, and as the PWC only sent them in the clothes they stood up in we had to provide them with clothes to wear including coats and shoes as they only ever came in old trainers which were useless if we were ever invited out to an event where they needed to look tidy. The clothes were viewed with distaste and worn grudgingly. The presents we could afford to buy were not the latest expensive toys and gadgets this applied to both my step children and our own children, and the things we bought them were often 'left behind' at our house as they didn't want or need to take them back to their mother's house. When they were spending weekends with us often their mother would ring them and say " Guess what we've bought you today?" and the rest of our weekend would be ruined as the children wouldn't enjoy being with us but just be keen to get back to play with whatever they had been bought.

Our holidays were usually a few days in a caravan or a few days camping. We were rarely allowed to have the children for more than a couple of days at a time anyway, and even when we did book holidays on more than one occasion the pwc would ring and say that the children could no longer join us, so we'd paid for them for nothing. That's not to say that when we did go away we always had lots of fun and we have very happy memories of our times together both when it was just them and also after our children were born.

Financially we have struggled whilst we have watched them living a life of luxury.

To those people that say my husband shouldn't have married me and we shouldn't have had our own children if he couldn't afford to support his own family why not? Why shouldn't he be allowed to rebuild his life and create a future for himself? She has remarried and they have other children as well as the ones she had with him. Is he supposed to stay single for the rest of his life living for the weekends he is allowed to spend with his children? Is he only allowed to have a life of his own once they have grown up and left the home of the pwc whilst she is sitting pretty in their family home into which she has moved the man that she had an affair with and created herself a happy life of luxury. How is that fair?