View Full Version : csa and real rates per week
found this on the family law website and want to see opinions of those having to pay child support .
these tables show what it costs in their view to look after children of different ages per week. why is it then that we have to pay 174 per week for a 10 year old?? when the family courts work off it costing $65.30 per week
there was also another chart saying that 0-7 year old need roughly 240 to 277 per week so in the case of a second family then instead of paying 174 per week for the cs case it should only be the 65.30 if you know what i mean?
please only replies from people who are genuinely in the situation of being a paying parent, no payees i am not being discriminative just wanting the views of the payers.
mumoftwoboys2005
15-03-2006, 20:57
It's very hard the way the CSA have worked things. There is an amount of the non custodial parents wage that cannot be touched by CSA. From memory, it's about $265 per week. I don't know about you, but that won't even pay the rent in my house let alone feed and clothe a family of 4. We pay $125 per week for a 9 year old that we don't even see thanks to his mother and grandmother. Apparently the law is changing and the custodial parent will only be paid pro rata on how much time the child/children spend with their other parent. If that's the case, we don't pay anything. Before anyone gets all cranky with that, bear in mind that the circumstances in this case are not public. We'll see that happens when the new laws come in. Pm me if you need to chat.
Jo.
InSaneOne
15-03-2006, 21:14
it can be really hard on the paying parents. my husband when we first lived together we had health problems and moved in with my parents. csa took his income and worked out all the bills he had to pay. they worked out that he had $50 a week left over. they then took that $50 and gave it to his ex who was working a part time job and receiving full centrelink pension and benefits for the 3 kids. we were then chased for years by creditors from their marriage wanting their money. i ended up paying for her share of the debts so we could sort out our lives and apply for a car loan because she wouldn't fork out any money for anything, including new shoes for the kids and we also paid for all their school fees and camps, etc. i can't wait for this new law to come in as i hope things become a little bit fairer on the paying parents.
i was told once by a csa worker that james's ex could earn up to $100000.00 per year and he would still have to pay her money for the children.
Hi pumpkin
I've posted on this one before...it's my biggest beef with child support and the reason that the groups get so up in arms whenever there is talk about changing the rate. I believe (I've done the sums before) that my hubby has over the years paid the total cost of raising his two children from a previous relationship - leaving the total income of his ex for her - yet when we applied for a reassessment based upon the fact that I wanted to be a SAHM, they said that she relies on his money for her income so wouldn't reduce it - guess who ended up back at work, while she never has?
Anyway - this is where the new system has some good research backing it up. The original figures were apparently abitary figures plucked out of the air and not actually indicative of the costs of raising a child. The new system takes into account the fact that as your income increases you spend more money on your children, but proportionally less - as you normally have a mortgage and other investments etc. Therefore the fact that they will be taking into account both of the parent's incomes will mean a fairer system for the second families too.
It's the other thing that gets my goat - the fact that my children are worth a flat rate, but the first two children are allocated more, if my hubby works overtime etc (mind you, so does the tax office and the non monetary cost to our family is greater etc). Fact is, financially my children and I would be better off if I separated from hubby (we'd qualify for benefits and be allocated a greater proportion of his income) - the current system is not encouraging families to stay together... We're lucky that I am able to work parttime and earn enough to pay sundries, as if I was unskilled and had to go back to work, I'd have to put in more hours to get the same pay, meanwhile - my stepkid's biomum does not work and still gets more money than me (as it's tax free etc).
Bring on the changes.:thumbsup:
i agree with the changes but the payees income has to be above 14000 before it is taken into account so what happens if they both dont work and are on pensions? as far as im concerned that is income. also if i were to leave my DH my kids would get $400 per week from him for cs, yet in his care they are only entitled to 2424.00 per child under 13 which is equivalent to $46.61 per week yet if we werent together it would be $ 400.00 per week divided by 3 = $133.00 per week so go figure. s***s me
OMG my blood is boiling just thinking about the inequalities that the payers 2nd family has to endure :mad:
I feel that I (and the children I will have) are disadvantaged and undervalued in the current system. Although we will loose one income when we have a child the amount of CS we pay will drop from $600/m to $500/m. This means that my choice to be a SAHM is taken away from me :thumbsdown:
Why should I suffer because I married a man who already has a child??? Grrrr:mad:
OMG my blood is boiling just thinking about the inequalities that the payers 2nd family has to endure :mad:
I feel that I (and the children I will have) are disadvantaged and undervalued in the current system. Although we will loose one income when we have a child the amount of CS we pay will drop from $600/m to $500/m. This means that my choice to be a SAHM is taken away from me :thumbsdown:
Why should I suffer because I married a man who already has a child??? Grrrr:mad:
exactly. know how you feel. :mad:
Blessed Mum
16-03-2006, 19:31
I can understand what you mean too aggero. we spent many years paying cs for his two kids, one he was even denied contact with for 13years:mad: by the bio mum. It should be fair for everybody. Thank goodness they are both nearly adults well one is the other nearly is.
I know exactly what you mean Tara - we now count down the years till the maintenance drops off - 5 and 7years. It's the main reason it took us 6years till we started our own family - why should our family suffer just because hubby has two others.
They go on about the rights of the children - but the rights are not viewed as the same (first and second families).
Agree totally with what Pumpkin was saying about getting more money if she left her hubby and got cs - it's what I was saying when I said about the fact that I would have a higher proportion of his income if we separated.
Aggero - I also feel that my choice to be a SAHM was taken away from me...
At the end of the day tho' I feel my best revenge on the system is to make sure that our kids have the love of both of their parents and are raised in a home where they feel special. The money thing gets my goat, but we abide by the system so at least in future years, things can't be said to my stepkids that their father is a deadbeat or whatever. After the 8years of abuse that I've taken from the kid's biomum (a lot about money) I figure that rather than lowering myself to her level, we're better people if we do the right thing with the money and I raise my kids to be well adjusted, special people (sad to say the other two have been raised to think that money grows on trees - actually it does in that house).
The system will never be perfect but at least they are moving in the right direction by backing up their recommendations with some research.:fingerscrossed:
OK first for the families having to pay support. Depending on how much you have these children in your home you can claim family tax benefit. I know this because my ex signed a waiver for his right to it so i could get 100%, i will explain why later.
I feel like i am in shark infested waters at the moment as i am a mother who collects child support.
My ex and i have been really great mates since we split, something i never thought would happen. When we first split he was working 2 jobs and had to pay quite a bit of child support. Many many months later he decided to quit one of those jobs, drastically reducing his pay. At the time i had just started living with my partner and had decided not to claim FTB on a fortnightly basis. My ex and i came up with an agreement of how much we thought he should pay ( it was less than what he should have ) and then he contacted CSA who told him that because i wasnt claiming FTB and we came to a mutual agreement that he did NOT need to change his details with CSA.
It wasnt til nearly 12 months down the track that i realised that my lump sum at tax time would be affected by centrelink having the wrong information. So i contacted centrelink and told them, they replied that there was nothing they could do and i would have to sort it out with the CSA. And so began the nightmare.
CSA said that my ex should have been paying around $700 a month for our 2 kids but i knew that he could not afford that and was only paying $200. The problem we had was that CSA would not adjust his income because he hadnt done his taxes for 2 years and was still going off his original figures. My ex and i were constantly on the phone to CSA and nothing was ever getting done and i was getting distressed. I was pregnant at the time and wanted it sorted out before the baby was born. Finally after about 4-5 months it was sorted, to make up for all the trouble that had been caused my ex signed the waiver, and to thank him for that he doesnt pay as much child support as the agency says to
my DF has to pay child support for a 5 yr old that he has never even seen. DF works about 80hrs per week just to put food on our table and now cs is saying they want more money so after we pay our rent and our car loan we are left with $100 to pay for fuel, food and bills. We are really struggling and i do feel sometimes that i would be better off leaving DF as then my kids would have a chance at some kind of life.
The amount we pay for one child through cs doesnt even match what we spend on 2 children in a fortnight. I realise the other child is DF's responsibility as well but it sometimes feels like that child is favoured by cs IYKWIM.
When our second child was born i rang CS to let them know of her birth and to find out how much our rate would be reduced per week and was told $4. thats how much my daughter was worth a week a measly $4 whereas the other mother gets way over $100 per week.
It just doesnt make sense to me and our payments have since gone up again. We are at the point where i have to leave my 5 month old baby and go work, but the other mother has a school aged child and she doesnt have to work.
Not fair i say but then those on the other side say its not fair for them either. i dont think this problem will ever be solved properly. :banghead:
InSaneOne
17-03-2006, 09:08
i think the way the csa favours the parent receiveing all the money is wrong. i mean they generally have the most custody anyway and the payers are often struggling and anything they have left to pay for food and fuel gets taken. what are we to do when we can't buy food and the ex gets new clothes and a fab hairstyle every week. i wasn't even able to buy maternity clothes i had to wear old clothes of my mums from 30 years ago. i was 8 and 1/2 months pregnant and stressing out because i didn't have any baby clothes for when my dd was born. lucky my sil gave my soem that her dd grew out of or my dd would have come home in just a blanket.
Jodie
Don't feel as though you are in shark infested waters - it sounds like you and your ex do the right thing.
The problem comes in when there is too much animosity and the exes can't discuss things rationally (in my instance, the ex always talks to me as she and my husband can't have a sensible conversation - there is too much bad blood).
Yes I know about the FTB - we have the kids more than 37nights some times (this year we already have had our DSS for more and last year it was my DSD). I keep a diary, but the problem is that we have been told to claim it we have to get the ex to agree that we do, I thought this would be easy - I was mistaken. The problem is that she would have to pay back what she received. I'm not sure whether we'll claim it this year - there's a few things going on.
As I said it sounds like you and your ex have an agreement between the two of you that works for you and that's great.
The problem that we've been discussing here is that the percentages that the CSA have in the current agreements isn't indicative of how much it costs to 50/50raise a child - therein lies the issue.
I just didnt want anyone getting angry because i have problems with CSA and im receiving not giving.
I do understand where you are all coming from and agree 100% that there need to be some major changes. I think that a father should have access to his child whenever he wants if he is paying support, unless, of course, there is a history of abuse.
I think its terrible the way some people 'use' their children after a break up, i have often thought of moving away but i know my kids would miss their father terribly and simply couldnt do that to them.
It's the other thing that gets my goat - the fact that my children are worth a flat rate, but the first two children are allocated more, if my hubby works overtime etc (mind you, so does the tax office and the non monetary cost to our family is greater etc). Fact is, financially my children and I would be better off if I separated from hubby
that is stupid and i hope the system does change so circumstances like this will be better off.
I guess im really lucky that my current partner doesnt have an children and it is because my current partner earns a good wage that ive told me ex that he doesnt have to pay as much as what CSA says
I wish you all the best of luck with your battle with the exes but im off to pack my eldest 2 kids bags before their father arrives to take em away :smiliedance:
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