GRRRRR Child support crap.....:( (LONG)

[XRMummy]

Ok Here is the story
I have a 8yr old DD who i recieve no Child support for as her Father is unknown (Long story) I do recieve FTB A+B but it will drop to $100 a F/N soon as DP Pay has gone up..
DP and i have a 1 Yr old together and DP has a DS who is 4

Ok here is my VENT sorry it will be long

DP pays his ex wife child support for his DS who we get to see for 36 hours a fortnight (we are in the process of taking her to court for alot more time then wat she is willing to give) We have our DS to DP dependants but couldnt add DD in the old formula due to her not being his anyway we have been ring child support for the last 12 months and getting a different story everytime we speak to someone its all very confusing but they have all told us that once the new formula came in we would be able to add DD to DP dependants as step children will now be included.
So i ring up on tuesday as the new formula started on the 1st and i said to the lady on the other end how do we go about adding DD to DP depenedants and she goes has he adopted her or have a court order stating that he has legal rights to her ans i said NO WE WERE TOLD WE WOULD BE ABLE TO ADD STEP CHILDREN TO DEPENDANTS AS OF THE 1st OF JULY and she goes oh yes you can but she has to have been adopted or have a court order and i said well we havent been told any of this and she goes well you would be recieveing child support for her so why would you want to add her as a dependant anyway so i say NO i dont recieve any payment for her as her father is unknown and she goes oh well ill put you throught to assessment and you can talk to them so she puts me thor to the assessment tea and the guy i got was great But he said that our case is unusual and that becoz there is no hild support case file for my DD he doesnt think we would be able to add DD becoz there is a chance we could find out who DD father is and i said to the guy WELL ARE YOU GOIN TO PAY FOR TESTING EVERY SINGLE MALE AGED ANYWHERE FROM 25 TO 35 IN AUSTRALIA TO FIND OUT WHO HER FATHER IS... coz i sure as hell arent.... and he goes i know its hard but if the father was dead or overseas we would be able to add her straight away but becoz there is a slight chance we would be bale to find out who her father is they prob wont let us add her but he would send us out all the change of assessment forms and we could fill them out and cross our fingers...

Why is it that child support and centrelink are BOTH goverment offices but yet they have DIFFERENT guildlines..... centrelink class DD as DP dependant so i lose money there but then child support cant class her as a dependant therefore we lose more money as we have to give DP ex wife more money (we dont care the money we have to give her dont get me wrong it jut pee's me off that we lose both ways)
No we are thinking is it worth added DD becoz once we send of the change of assessment and EX wife recieves it she will fight it anyway coz she has the POOPS becoz we are taking her to court to see DstepS more (due to DS asking to have more sleepovers)
And now we are having DD assessed for ADHD so that is costing a crap load of money and will continue with medication and PAED appt's and so on

We were looking at DP adopting her after seeing our solicitor he informed us that it would cost us anywhere from 10 to 15 grand and we dont have that sort of money as we are taking DP ex to court already in 2 years it has cost us nearly 10 grand alreay and prob goin to cost us atleast another 7 as we have to take her to the FMC to get the extra time with DstepS

ARGHHH its so confusing
Has anyone else had this much trouble with child support???????????
And is it worth fighting to get DD on as a dependent or should we just leave it?????

What would you do ??????

SOrry for the long post but its just so frustrating

SARAH

[Kitt3n]

hey hun,

This wont help but its just another ramble on the same wavelength......

I agree with you totally regarding govt dept's with different procedures, its just riduculous.

My dd's "blood" father does not have to pay a cent in child support because apparently he doesnt earn enough - thsi is because he is self employed and hides his money. He has managed to pay off a brand new bobcat since i left him - $50k in 4 years, nice eh? He makes enough, trust me, but he thinks he is smart cos he can get away with it.

For me i really feel for you because of the contradicting rules - so much for "helping" - if you have to be the middle man between CSA and C/link then you are more likely to give up because you will do your head in before you get any help.

Hugs bella

[Yael]

Sarah,

My DH is a technical officer at the CSA (basically any of the members who you speak to and they don't know what to do, they call my DH and he tells them what to do in certain situations)... Anyway, i'm going to email him what you said and see what he says, and maybe PM me your email address so he can email you qns directly. He can't look up your specific case, but he can tell you what you are entitled to do, and then once you have that information, you can call up or go into your office, and ask to see a manager to get this case sorted out.

[Yael]

Kitt3n, i'll also ask him about assets proving income, but unfortunatly there are some tricky loopholes in the tax laws (not the CSA laws, but tax laws because thats what they base earnings one), and as much as the guys at CSA want to do something when they know the people are hiding money, there isn't much they can do.

Oh, actually, he told me last week that they are getting new powers for special enforecments.. i'll ask him about that also.

[briggsy's girl]

Kitt3n - i don't work for CSA, so hopefully Yael's DH will be able to give the more technical answer, but my understanding from the training we got in FAO for the reforms is that anyone that has an income below the rate of payment you'd receive if on an income support payment is going to be deemed to be earning income that they can write off at tax time, and as such, will be expected to pay a rate of child support equivalent to around $20 per fortnight. it's not a lot, but it's something - hopefully Yael will be able to get more details cos all my training stuff is at work!

we've also been told that there are more officers being employed to investigate "hidden" income from self employment (including things like assets purchases) to ensure that parents are paying what they should be paying towards their childrens upkeep. it might take a while, but hopefully it will work out in your favour.

smcgt - FAO/c'link don't look at who is a dependant of an individual for FTB purposes - they look at the family income of a couple living in a marriage like relationship. it sounds like CSA treat it very differently for the purposes of reducing child support liability. i would assume it is so that someone can't claim liability for a child of someone they live with if they have no financial liability for them iykwim?? i know it's hard, and i'm not sure if there is any evidence you've provided to centrelink to get a maintenance action exemption that might also support you at CSA - stat dec's, legal reports - anything like that?

yael, i "think" some of the enforcement powers come in terms of them being able to collect up to three times the current liability (so if it's 13 a fortnight for a newstart customer, they can collect up to 39 a fortnight) to pay amounts in arrears. this can make a HUGE difference. the child support are also able to deduct from centrelink income support payments whether the customer wants it that way or not. i believe the process for garnishing wages has been changed too, but not sure how...

hope you get some helpful answers soon smcgt

BG

[Yael]

BG - i also heard they could do stake outs or something to catch out the big time child support avoiders... DH is in a meeting for the afternoon, but i'll get him to pop in here tonight.

[briggsy's girl]

hadnt heard about stake outs - but it will be good if they do have that sort of power! very interesting!

[XRMummy]

Hi girls
Yael: i just PMed you my email addy thank you... Your a legend

BG: i can understand CSA not wanting to add dependants when there is someone else surprting then (so to speak) but wat about the ones dat dont have that support.... DP has the full finalcial responsabitys of DD and has so for the past 3 years if i knew who her father was i would be chasing him for money to support DD but unfort i dont (god dat makes me sound really bad doesnt it?) I do have the origanial letter from the solicitor i had to see for C/link back when she was born but i dont have the stat dec would i be able to get this from C/link... I have asked my local office here before for sumthing from my file but they said they dont hold anything its all kept at another location and it could take weeks to get it so i just didnt bother.....

Kitt3n: I have heard that they will be investigating hidden incomes also so hopefully if you keep nagging them they mite investigate you EX... Good luck with it all.....

Why does life so hard sometimes LOL

Sarah

[briggsy's girl]

i honestly don't know if the solicitor letter will be sufficient - but i'd be asking the question...

[XRMummy]

I mite go into our local office tomorrow and see if they can get the copy of the stat dec i did when DD was born.......

We just recieved the change of assessment form today so i'll start filling that out...
DP was saying before that we mite speak to our solicitor next week when we see her about getting a court order done but we will speak to her first and see wat she says...
Also spoke to centrelink about my FTB i will get about $350 a fortnight with DP wage..... but it doesnt cover all my derect debits that come out of my account each fortnight ah well i spose

[Yael]

Sorry, DH had to work late last night and was exhausted when he got home. He said he will look at the questions over the weekend.

[XRMummy]

Thanks Yael that would be great...... anything would help at the moment

[XRMummy]

Well it make things a lil easier it looks like we are goin to get a court order to state that DP has full Finacial care of DD so we maybe able to add her...

Just waiting for our Solictior to ring me back so i can ask her about it all......

[Yael]

DH has today off, and he knows he has to look at this.. he will be home in 10 mins.

He did ask if you spoke to somebody from the COA (change of assessment team) directly about it, or just somebody from the general line?

[XRMummy]

Hi yael sorry i didnt realise you had replied to this till now it didnt came up on my threads.... i have been on the phone to the legal services side of CSA this morning as we were told htat getting a court order would be alot simplier then going under reason 10 of COA form but they have infopmred me that we cant get a court order done becoz we are not married... i have been balling my eyes out for half the morning coz we have been told so much crap and we start to think yay somethings are going to go well and now we get told this crap and i have just had enough.......

I did speak to someone at COA and he said that all we could do was fill out the COA form and send it back and hope we get a assessor that is having a good day and alllows our form to go thro but he didnt like our chances becoz DD father isnt dead or living overseas...

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Yael]

Hey Sarah,

Ok, my husband had a look last night, and said it wasn't a simple issue at all. Infact, he said if it was granted, it would be a landmark decision for the CSA. He did say it all depends on how you fill out your COA form. The person he sits next to is a specalist in COA, so he was going to ask the guy what he thought could be done, and look up some stuff at work today, and get back to you over the next few days, as it is a very complicated issue.

[XRMummy]

Yael you and your DH are gems thank you so much

I really didnt think that just becoz DD father isnt known would cause so much trouble LOL
I htought it would makes things a lil easier actually but that doesnt seem to be the case.....

Once again thank you so much to you and your DH...
I look forward to hearing from you both in the next few days

Sarah

[Yael]

Ok, so sorry it has taken me so long to reply, i got distracted and meant to come back.

Sarah, i don't think you are going to like DH answer:

There is nothing that can be done. I have spoken to another technical officer who is a specialist in change of assessment and he said that what is an isn't allowed to be considered as far as a relevant dependant child in a step-child like relationship is defined very strictly in the new legislation. what I have pasted below is a some text which I have found in the guide, chapter 2.6.16 (CSA - The Guide - 2.6.16: Reason 10 ?€“ responsibility of the parent to maintain a resident child). However, the actual legislative reference is Section 117 (10) of the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989. what is in the guide as far as this is conserned has been copied and pasted from the legislation:

There can be a reason for changing an assessment if the capacity of either child support parent to provide financial support for the child(ren) is significantly reduced because he or she has a responsibility to maintain a resident child.
The three threshold requirements are:
1. There are 'special circumstances';
2. The child support parent has the responsibility to maintain a 'resident child'; and
3. the responsibility significantly affects the child support parent's ability to provide financial support for the child of the child support assessment.
The phrase 'special circumstances of the case' is not defined in the Assessment Act. The Family Court has held that 'it is intended to emphasise that the facts of the case must establish something which is special or out of the ordinary' (Gyselman and Gyselman (1992) FLC 92-279).
The Assessment Act defines 'resident child ' at section 117(10).
A 'resident child' of a child support parent is a child who:
• normally lives with the child support parent, but is not a child of the child support parent; and
• the child support parent is, or was, for two continuous years, a member of a couple; and
• the other member of the couple is, or was, a biological parent of the child; and
• the child is aged under 18; and
• the child is not a member of a couple; and
• one or more of the following applies in respect of each biological parent of the child:
o the biological parent has died;
o the biological parent is unable to support the child due to the ill-health of the biological parent;
o the biological parent is unable to support the child due to the caring responsibilities of the biological parent; and
• the resident child requires financial assistance

I'm so sorry Sarah... it really sucks. Although he did say if you DP adopted your DD, then you would be applying under a different provision... not sure if he wants to, or how he would go about it from a legal POV though.