Affecting Payments.

[ForeverMine]

My ex are I were talking about who our daughter would live with once she was born, and we came down to the conclusion that I was to look after her, and he would take her "when he could"... He is fine with me getting full benefits from the government etc, and I was just wondering,

How many hours per week/fortnight/month etc can he have her, before my benefits are affected? I remember reading something about it, but can't find it to save my life...

I just need to know, not to keep his daughter away from her so I get more money, but knowing I can set a budget up for when's she born and be able to stick with it...

[mythreelittlemonkeys]

it is 10% for family tax benefit then goes down until hits base rate...so he needs to have her for less than 37 nights a year...which is very little...but if it is under 20% he can opt for you to have payment I think...their website tells you anyway. Whatever you do make sure you declare the amount of time as they do find out.

[pegasus]

The family tax benefit going down with noncustodial parents having access will cease when the new child support stuff comes into affect, as child support payments will be affected instead (currently the paying parent needs to have more than 110 nights for child support to be affected).

[Hector]

you can ring the family assistance office (a centrelink number) and just talk to them about it all - tell them you are just trying to budget and be responsible. I did this and got a really nice operator who was really friendly and actually gave me heaps of advice about what to claim and etc. i think it's about overnight stays anyway - you can get the booklets sent out withthe correct info. it's sometihg like 0-150 nights a year before it affects payment but PHONE them! then you will know for sure!

[brizbabe]

Chrissydec06-

This is the link on Centrelink for the Shared Care form which has some examples etc of the calculations.

http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/filestores/fa012_0607/$file/fa012_0607en_p.pdf

if link doesn't work just copy and paste the above into the address bar....

To be able to claim a portion of the FTB payments the "non custodial parent" needs to have the child at least 10% of the time. If they have less than 30% they can choose to waive the FTB.

It is generally assessed on nights in care but if need be can be broken down to days / hours if nights in care doesn't correctly reflect actual time in care each party has. Nights in care is generally accepted as being in that parents care for the day.:)