Childcare benefit when children split their time between 2 different houses

gilbutre

Hi everyone,

After a divorce children often end up splitting their time between the fathers and the mother's places. However Tax Credits and Housing Benefits only understand that an individual DOES or DOES NOT live in the property.

If somehow the mother receives the full childcare benefit (because supposedly children DO LIVE in her house) and the father receives nothing (because supposedly children DO NOT live in his house), while in reality children live half of the time in mother house and the other half in father house, then the mother clearly receives 50% too much benefit and the father 50% too little.

How does it work in reality (hopefully more intelligently than that) ?

nannytone_2

it would also be equally unfair for the taxpayer to fund a child twice ... once at its mothers and again at its fathers.
surely the 2 reasonable parents should be able to come to an arrangement between themselves?

pol-zeath

nannytone wrote: »

it would also be equally unfair for the taxpayer to fund a child twice ... once at its mothers and again at its fathers.
surely the 2 reasonable parents should be able to come to an arrangement between themselves?

Precisely, this is the obvious solution one claimant who then makes an arrangement with the other parent.

There would be increased admin costs if the benefits agency had to pay 50% to one parent and 50% to another

gilbutre

Sounds awesome except that in the real world countless divorced parents hate each other and don't speak to each other. I mean there will obviously be tons of cases where the parent receiving childcare simply won't share it as long as the law doesn't force him/her to. What then?

nannytone_2

that is an issue for the parents concerned though and not the benefit system.
youre aski8ng for the system to spoon feed every aspect of what is essentially, 2 adults lives and that of their offspring.
their choices could be to go through the CSA, which classes tax credits as income and so get a maintenance order or earn extra money to be able to afford to live without the need of benefits

barbie_babe

When u go though divorce one parent has to be person that child lives permentally. That person gets benefits. Other just has to pay for that child to live with them half the week. I dont think that person has to pay maintainance to other person as they are giving towards child keep on days with them.

gilbutre

@nannytone: "...earn extra money to be able to afford to live without the need of benefits" : is this not the easiest thing to say in the world?

@barbie babe: "When u go though divorce one parent has to be person that child lives permentally". You are saying that the system doesn't care about children's natural need to continue seeing both parents, instead promoting and inevitably, in many cases, forcing children to stop seeing one parent most of the time. Is the system that immoral???

FBaby

You refer to childcare benefit. Do you mean the childcare element of tax credits? Whoever claims this just has to pay the full childcare cost, regardless of who they are spending the night with. Ideally, the parents would then spit the 30% difference that still needs to be paid but then this might not be as straight forward if there are significant differences between incomes.

Tigsteroonie

gilbutre wrote: »

You are saying that the system doesn't care about children's natural need to continue seeing both parents, instead promoting and inevitably, in many cases, forcing children to stop seeing one parent most of the time. Is the system that immoral???

No, but the system is quite simple under English law - one parent is the "parent with custody" and the other is not. The child spends more time with one parent rather than with the other.

I presume you are a visitor to the UK, gilbutre? You might want to post such discussion questions over in Discussion Time, rather than on a board intended to help people claim the benefits to which the current system entitles them and in such a way as the current system is defined.

clearingout

gilbutre wrote: »

@nannytone: "...earn extra money to be able to afford to live without the need of benefits" : is this not the easiest thing to say in the world?

@barbie babe: "When u go though divorce one parent has to be person that child lives permentally". You are saying that the system doesn't care about children's natural need to continue seeing both parents, instead promoting and inevitably, in many cases, forcing children to stop seeing one parent most of the time. Is the system that immoral???

The system isn't immoral, it simply counts children (and adults for that matter) only once. The simplest, and most cost-effective. way of counting a child once is to recognise the child as living with one or other of it's parents (or other adults in the case of adoption, fostering, going into care etc.). This does, of course, pose a problem for separated parents who are genuinely sharing care.

Assuming you have your children 50% of overnights, are able to prove it, and are genuinely sharing the costs of bringing up the children equally with your ex (school uniform, school dinners, trips, haircuts, shoes, childcare, clubs, activities, presents for birthday parties....?), you would be within your rights to make a claim for the Child Benefit yourself. Assuming you have at least 2 children, it is possible that the Child Benefit would be split between you and the ex - so with two children, you receive the Child Benefit for one child each. However, I would urge caution about making a claim just because you can if you are not genuinely sharing costs and/or if your ex earns less than you and/or if you know that doing so may cause financial difficulties for your ex that are not easily resolved.

NYM

gilbutre wrote: »

@barbie babe: ....... You are saying that the system doesn't care about children's natural need to continue seeing both parents, instead promoting and inevitably, in many cases, forcing children to stop seeing one parent most of the time. Is the system that immoral???

I think the 'system' relies on parents having the maturity to deal with shared parenting.