Child maintenance...not

Oneofthosedays73 · 20 June 2018 at 4:16PM

I have spent the last 3 years trying to get child maintenance from my ex for our two children, one of which is disabled. He is a self-employed contractor and claimed he only paid himself the minimum wage. I told them he was driving a two-year-old Mercedes 4x4 and went to the US on holiday lastyear so they did a variation order and found he was earning £60k. They have reassessed him and came up with a much more realistic amount (based on previous year's earnings) which he is now paying but I noticed today that he has now added his girlfriend to his company as a Director and he clearly intends to pay her dividends to reduce his income and what he should pay for the children. I work full-time but can't afford holidays, his girlfriend is not working as she is at home with the baby they have, so how can this be allowed. It's totally unfair and is a blatant attempt at hiding his earnings from the CMS. Does anyone know if the HMRC would do anything?

MataNui · 27 June 2018 at 1:08PM

Nope, HMRC wont do anything. Owning shares in a company and being entitled to dividends has nothing at all to do with anything else. Its 100% legal and how every ltd company works. Companies have shareholders who get dividends. They may or may not also be employees. It makes no difference. As long as she declares any dividends she receives on a self assessment form then its a perfectly reasonable arrangement.

jimd-f · 28 June 2018 at 9:34AM

HMRC will not do anything at all until something happens. at present she has received no dividends. until they both submit new tax returns showing changed incomes they will not be interested.
and as far as CMS is concerned they will do nothing until the annual review, or your ex advises them of a vastly reduced income. your variation should help protect you to some extent in the short term and CMS may well look at diversion of income if they believe that your ex has made his new g/f a director solely for that purpose. however they will not do anything about investigating this issue until there is a change of income that affects your assessment.

kimplus8 · 4 July 2018 at 3:01PM

You can appeal this and state that it is a diversion of income to reduce his maintenance liability?

MataNui · 4 July 2018 at 4:42PM

kimplus8 wrote: »

You can appeal this and state that it is a diversion of income to reduce his maintenance liability?

And have not a cat in hells chance of winning.
The money in the Ltd company does not legally belong to the OPs ex. It belongs to the company. In fact the guy needn't take any money out of the company at all apart from enough to live on. Would you then suggest the CSA and OP have the right to go after the companies assets? If so we would end up with the CSA being able to claim billions for ex partners of FTSE 100 companies directors based on the earnings of the company. Its nothing at all to do with the CSA or the OP what happens to it. They can only get a variation based on money that is taken out of the company via dividends, excessive expenses, perks etc. CSA have no rights to any information on other directors / shareholders of companies the OPs ex is also a shareholder of.

Child maintenance...not

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