Hideous Payments

You might be forgiven for thinking this is going to be about tax, which it is not.

The hideous payments refer to child support payments.

Unfortunately child support payments are the bane of some people’s lives.

For those who are not sure what child support payments are we provide a brief summary:

1.       When people separate and there are children of the relationship both parents are financially responsible for those children.

2.       As the number of separated households increased there was reluctance by those in superior financial circumstance, who did not have the children live with them full time, to shy away from their financial responsibility by not providing financial support to the primary care giver (in most cases the mother).

3.       The Child Support Assessment Act regulates child support payments.

4.       The Child Support Agency assesses the amount of child support to be paid based on a set formula, taking into account income as well as the level of care each parent has for the child or children.  

5.       Whilst the Child Support Agency can assist in collecting child support payments they do prefer if parents work these matters out between themselves.

6.       If the payer or the payee feel an assessment is not correct an application can be made to review the decision internally before taking the matter to the SSAT.

We are sure you would all agree this sounds reasonable. What then is the fuss about?

Having spent considerable amount of time practicing family law the writers believe one of the most difficult things for paying fathers (it is usually fathers who are the payers) to accept is that children cost money.

Payers often complain about the money going to her (the mother), as if this was reason enough not to make child support payments. Payers feel the urge to regulate what their money should be spent on. Often payers ask that instead of being deposited into the mother’s bank account it should go into an account for the child or direct to the school to pay school fees or to pay medical expenses.

Do these people really think that is the extent of the expense of the child, school fees and medical bills? Perhaps some ignorant payers do.  

True it is the money goes into the mother’s bank account, however, true it is too the mother has the majority expenses for the child/children (we apologise if you feel we are being biased and we agree there are fathers who have the full time care of the child of children with mothers not paying child support but for ease of writing we will stick with the experience of the writers).

Is it really a problem if some of the money paid as child support ends up being used for the mother to go and spend it on herself? Probably not, particularly if it makes her feel good and she has spent every cent she earned the week before to treat the child or children to something special.  

Many payers try hard to avoid paying child support, going to extreme measures of reducing their income, so the bitch won’t get any of my money. Sadly these people do not realise that the real sufferers of their decisions are the children, not the mother. Others work or operate small businesses on a cash only basis, more or less becoming outlaws as they do not pay tax or meet their obligations pursuant to child support payments.  

Whilst we are not in the business of telling others how to run their lives we encourage payers who have difficulty accepting they have to pay child support to set up an automatic fortnightly (or monthly) debit on their account to pay the required amount. At the very least this should minimise some of the stress as no thought has to be given to making the payments as they happen automatically. Surely this is a better way of dealing with the situation than becoming an outlaw, which is what happens when you simply stop accepting responsibility for your actions.