Monday, August 21, 2006

Child Support debt

According to Judith Collins, In 2003, $73,207,549 was owed by liable parents known to be living in Australia. Today that figure has ballooned to $281,913,850.

It's quadrupled.

To put that into context, in 2004 the total collections for Child Support were $294,966,857!

The huge Australian figures are in part the result of interest accruing. Any amount not paid by the due date has 10 percent interest added and a further 2 percent of the total amount is added each month.

I know some readers are better informed on the subject of child support than I am and would be interested to know how much of the increase Collin's is reporting is due to more renegers fleeing to Oz and how much to accrual interest and penalties on existing debt.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a father who pays Non Custodial Parent tax, I know you cant afford to be 1 second late in payment or else you get whacked with the 10% fee. in my case $75 which hurts a lot. the fact that the $$ left my account on the right day and was probably a bank delay meant nothing to the IRD autobot. the fact that i had never missed a payment in years was not taken into account either. Its very easy to see how some pack up and disapear. I cant because I have a very established relationship in place but its certainly felt like an out previously with all bullshit that people try and play.

Anonymous said...

to add to my previous comment. I have met Judith and she is a total waste of space IMHO. All she cares about is collecting the debt which is not going to help the kids who miss out. She refuses to look into the issues that got us here in the 1st place. She has all us seperated fathers in one bag in her mind and we all get what we deserve.

Anonymous said...

well its certainly true. fair depends on what side of the fence your on I guess. It nothing more than benefit recovery while the custodial parent is on the DPB or whatever.

The real shit starts if/when they get a job. Thats when all the money is taken as a percentage of gross income but comes out of taxed income and transferred tax free to the custodial parent. No matter how much they earn the amount stays the same. If they enter a relationship it stays the same.

My income goes up the amount goes up. I have no say in how the money is spent. I repartnered and we now have kids. On my income I was paying around $1000 per month but now $750 as I am no longer in management earning perf bonus etc etc. Guess how much we got back for our 2nd child?

$30 a month!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ummm thanks for that. Will make a huge difference.

any wonder so many "dead beat dads" take off? Not really eh?

Shame though as the kids miss out in most cases. Sometimes they might be better off with out dad or mum as thats the way it goes.

I refuse to bail on my daughter as her mum is such a total nut bar she needs the grounding our family gives her

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Anon, I disagree with Judith Collin's/National's approach as well. She does assume the blame is almost entirely father's whereas many, if not a small majority, haven't been the instigator of the split. The father is punished whether or not he is a guilty party. But I've always maintained the bulk of the problem won't be solved until we change the DPB availability.

If a split is amicable and no benefit is involved the Child Support Act can be avoided. That would be my advice. Unfortunately most custodial parents use welfare for at least some time.

Anonymous said...

Yep, the impression I got was that she was pretty much a witch.

Such a shame Muriel is no longer a player in parliament. Mind you her Shared Parenting Bill got torn to shreds before it got past the 1st hurdle.

A threshold of 40% before any recalculation of NCP tax is ridiculous. The act fails to take into account any support that I give my daughter directly. In fact it makes us pay twice in some cases thus further penalising the second class citizens of NZ, the repartnered family especially the siblings.