Thread: Another ACA story, Child support

Originally Posted by abaddonxi

Gotta say that my quality of life improved significantly when I stopped watching 6:30 current affairs shows.

Recommend it to everyone.

Cheers
Simon

Haha... very sage piece of advice Simon...

Mark

going by this thread i think its far cheaper to stay married


couple of my mates are going through this stage at the moment....
they ain't liking it so far

I know in my case the system is unfair because my work pay us a wage and a comission. CSA look at my end of year pay and work out what amount I should pay,BUT I dont get my comissions on a regular basis and the amounts change each month yet I have a weekly amount to pay based on that gross amount. It sucks ! They dont care and wont change the way they calculate it, so it means each week I am left with very little in my pocket and have to hang out till I get my comm cheque. The harder I work the worse off I am each week, so there is no incentive to work harder to improve my situation. My ex is remarried and her husband is a self employed tradesman earning good money , so she is on easy street with him and laughing all the way to the bank whilst my new wife and I struggle to live. To make things worse my wifes ex chucked in his job and became self employed pretend tradesman( no skills tradesman) but of course doesnt earn anything (thats another story ) so he only has to pay us $2 per child per week and he gets child allowance for having the kids on his fortnightly visits plus other entitlements from centre link. Im drowning because of the system.
One last thing that is unfair with the system is that when my wifes ex started claiming for the days he had the kids, the gov took his payments out of ours! When I tried to claim the visits that I had with my kids, my ex stopped me from seeing them and notified centrelink that she wasnt allowing me acess because of this and they said ok. I told CSA that I thought that it was unfair that although she wasnt allowing acess I still had to pay and they said that paying maintenance doesnt buy you the rights to see your kids. I went to Legal Aid and they said that it would be a long winded process at my expense to gain acess again involving mediation sessions that I had to pay for and could take a long time to resolve anything. Luckily for me my kids are understanding.

Originally Posted by Noki 3.9

I know in my case the system is unfair because my work pay us a wage and a comission. CSA look at my end of year pay and work out what amount I should pay,BUT I dont get my comissions on a regular basis and the amounts change each month yet I have a weekly amount to pay based on that gross amount. It sucks ! They dont care and wont change the way they calculate it, so it means each week I am left with very little in my pocket and have to hang out till I get my comm cheque. The harder I work the worse off I am each week, so there is no incentive to work harder to improve my situation. My ex is remarried and her husband is a self employed tradesman earning good money , so she is on easy street with him and laughing all the way to the bank whilst my new wife and I struggle to live. To make things worse my wifes ex chucked in his job and became self employed pretend tradesman( no skills tradesman) but of course doesnt earn anything (thats another story ) so he only has to pay us $2 per child per week and he gets child allowance for having the kids on his fortnightly visits plus other entitlements from centre link. Im drowning because of the system.
One last thing that is unfair with the system is that when my wifes ex started claiming for the days he had the kids, the gov took his payments out of ours! When I tried to claim the visits that I had with my kids, my ex stopped me from seeing them and notified centrelink that she wasnt allowing me acess because of this and they said ok. I told CSA that I thought that it was unfair that although she wasnt allowing acess I still had to pay and they said that paying maintenance doesnt buy you the rights to see your kids. I went to Legal Aid and they said that it would be a long winded process at my expense to gain acess again involving mediation sessions that I had to pay for and could take a long time to resolve anything. Luckily for me my kids are understanding.

I hear you only to well, I have suffered for years with similar arrangements and no matter what was tried it always worked against me, the only light I see at the end of my tunnel is the fact that one of my kids will be 18 in August and the other only has a few years to go after that, which will give me about 12-15 yrs of free income to get back to where I was 12 years ago and save up to buy a house, put away for retirement and provide as much for the child of my current family that I have for the for the children of the broken relationship.

l think the saying goes "The law is a ass"

Its a statutory formula devised by beaurcats and passed by politicians after lobbying by social and church groups so what do you expect other than gibberish.

Havent been married (have had failed long term relationships which cost me couple of house shares to resolve the property interests) don't have kids but l feel the pain

This is a good one, my youngest son from my first marriage lives with us and has done so for 5 years...

He stays with his Mum most school holidays and every second w'end.

His Mum doesn't work and has never contributed a cent for anything.

They told me that i have to pay her maintenance!!!!

Reason being i earn money shes on the Dole and Connor stays with her X number of days!!!

I've sat both sides of the fence, I've been through the appeals process with CSA (and I'd recommend it to anyone) twice now.

When my ex and I first separated we each had the kids, in our former house, week about. I paid for the mortgage, rates, electricity, clothes, child care etc, she paid for food (when she didn't just get it out of the pantry) in the week she was there. She claimed through CSA and nothing I was paying for counted so I had to pay both the assessed rate, my own separate accommodation (whether I was there or not) and all the house expenses because she wouldn't and I didn't want to have the electricity shut off or house repossessed. The CSA reassessment process got started but before we got there, she dropped her bundle and eventually I ended up with the kids.

Now I work and she works, but I get a pittance (when she does pay) for the kids - keeps them in socks, I guess.

The problem wasn't the CSA, the formula or any of that stuff - it was (and is, I guess) my ex.

Most of the serious, legitimate concern above is about exes using the system to punish.

Perhaps I'm the wrong person to comment. I spent a 6 figure sum plus about 3 months without work in order to get and keep my kids. I was lucky that, with a LOT of help from friends and family, I could do that. It does mean I don't have a house now, and still have a debt to pay. I might have spent that much and not got what I thought was best (my ex spent more!!)

I was looking down the barrel of not seeing the kids at all, and them being told I was the Devil.

Being in the system sux. But most of the trouble is the fight with the other party, not the fight with the CSA. Or at least in my experience that's been the trouble.

I recommend - asking for a reassessment, and considering if going to court on your own is possible. There ARE cheaper options for mediation (Relationships Australia I think are currently funded for some) and you can dispense with that step if you can show it is unnecessary. Court is tough emotionally, and mentally, and shouldn't be done without good advice, but it, or the threat of it in some cases, can be worthwhile. And if you can keep a Landie on the road, you can understand court processes - they are about as peculiar!

My partner has two kids (6 and 8), both him and his ex have well paying jobs. We pay the highest amount applicable and it is organised as a private agreement.

When it got to tax time though, she would not disclose how much money she had earnt through the financial year (knwoing half way through the year she had increased her income by at least $20,000). In the end (months later) we were forced to go to CSA to work out what we were meant to be paying. Plus we wanted it to go through them to avoid conflict with her.

We were surprised and I guess annoyed when we were told that we couldn't decide to go through CSA as we are the payers, she was the one that had to make that decision. In the end it turned out that she refused to sign up with them but they did get her tax details and they did send us out a new figure that we should be paying.

Also I understand that it costs more for the main parent to raise the children (hence they get the maintenance) but I think it becomes upsetting trying to digest the fact that the less you see of them the more you pay. Unfortunatly in our situation it isn't suitable to have 50/50 shared care but if it were viable we'd be choosing that option.