Child Maintenence Service - The rules need changing for self employed
The Issue
My story is this... I am a single, full time working mother of two young children. I split with the father of my children approximately 3 years ago after an abusive controlling relationship. We have two boys together who are now 4 and 6 years old.
The boys see their dad and his fiancé regularly. They live in a lovely semi-detached 3 bedroom house. Unfortunately, he and I have a very acrimonious relationship and with him being self-employed, he has managed to figure out a loophole in the way the CMS work out maintenance payments to avoid paying much maintenance for his two boys. We on the other hand live in a tiny two up two down, have hand me down clothes (for all three of us) and can't afford to go out for a meal. I almost single handedly pay for all the expenses, which includes afterschool clubs, food, rent, etc.
I have written to the CMS with my concerns who directed me on to HMRC. I wrote to HRMC and have since had no response.
Recently I received the annual review from the CMS of what my ex would have to pay towards maintenance payments and it states that he is earning £119.40 a week, which I cannot believe is that case when he regularly goes on overseas holidays (five times so far in 2016 – South Africa, Iceland, Amsterdam x 2 and Greece), has gotten engaged, buys the boys designer clothes and toys (and wears the same himself) and lives in a lifestyle that is nowhere near minimum wage. The upkeep of his residence alone would amount to him earning more than this. To make matters even worse, according to the rules of the CMS, he is entitled to get transportation costs taken off the children's maintenance figure as he lives more than 10 miles away. This essentially means his children are paying for him to come and fetch them for their weekends at their dad's house.
The overall weekly figure the CMS has worked out amounts to him having to pay just £7 for two children!! That's £3.50 a week per child!
I feel in the case of "paying parents" who are self-employed, the CMS should be doing further means testing when it comes to calculating maintenance figures. I cannot solely blame my ex for taking advantage of an obvious loophole in the current system and am therefore asking for the Child Maintenance Service to review and update it's clearly flawed processes. The current system is just not acceptable!
The Issue
My story is this... I am a single, full time working mother of two young children. I split with the father of my children approximately 3 years ago after an abusive controlling relationship. We have two boys together who are now 4 and 6 years old.
The boys see their dad and his fiancé regularly. They live in a lovely semi-detached 3 bedroom house. Unfortunately, he and I have a very acrimonious relationship and with him being self-employed, he has managed to figure out a loophole in the way the CMS work out maintenance payments to avoid paying much maintenance for his two boys. We on the other hand live in a tiny two up two down, have hand me down clothes (for all three of us) and can't afford to go out for a meal. I almost single handedly pay for all the expenses, which includes afterschool clubs, food, rent, etc.
I have written to the CMS with my concerns who directed me on to HMRC. I wrote to HRMC and have since had no response.
Recently I received the annual review from the CMS of what my ex would have to pay towards maintenance payments and it states that he is earning £119.40 a week, which I cannot believe is that case when he regularly goes on overseas holidays (five times so far in 2016 – South Africa, Iceland, Amsterdam x 2 and Greece), has gotten engaged, buys the boys designer clothes and toys (and wears the same himself) and lives in a lifestyle that is nowhere near minimum wage. The upkeep of his residence alone would amount to him earning more than this. To make matters even worse, according to the rules of the CMS, he is entitled to get transportation costs taken off the children's maintenance figure as he lives more than 10 miles away. This essentially means his children are paying for him to come and fetch them for their weekends at their dad's house.
The overall weekly figure the CMS has worked out amounts to him having to pay just £7 for two children!! That's £3.50 a week per child!
I feel in the case of "paying parents" who are self-employed, the CMS should be doing further means testing when it comes to calculating maintenance figures. I cannot solely blame my ex for taking advantage of an obvious loophole in the current system and am therefore asking for the Child Maintenance Service to review and update it's clearly flawed processes. The current system is just not acceptable!
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Petition created on 3 October 2016