Thread: Csa ??????

HI,
If your husbands ex-wife receives child benefit for her son who is in the army and the office decides it has to be paid back, then that will be HER responsibility not the sons. Child benefit is paid to the parent for the upkeep of the child, so i cant see how they could claim it back from her son.
The law about fathers and their new relationships and how much they pay gets quite tricky, and you never get the same answer twice.
visit CSA Homepage - Child Support Agency where you can do a sort of online calculation of what your husband is expected to pay.

How maintenance is calculated

They use information given to them by both parents to decide if someone has to pay child maintenance and to work out the amount of maintenance that should be paid. They may also use information from other sources, including the non-resident parent's employer or HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) — which used to be the Inland Revenue.
They work out child maintenance by applying one of four rates to the non-resident parent's income. Income is earnings, money from an occupational or personal pension, and tax credits. They use the amount of income left after things like income tax, National Insurance and any money paid into a pension scheme have been taken off. This does not apply if the pension is set up to pay off a mortgage, when only 75% of the money paid into the pension scheme is taken away from the non-resident parent's income.

The four rates they apply to the non-resident parent's income are:

• basic rate (if they have an income of £200 a week or more)
• reduced rate (if they have an income of more than £100 and less than £200 a week)
• flat rate (if they have an income of between £5 and £100 a week)
• nil rate (if they have an income of less than £5 a week).

They can then adjust the child maintenance based on:

• the number of other children who are living with the non-resident parent, who they or their partner get Child Benefit for (a regular payment made to anyone bringing up children)
• the number of children the non-resident parent needs to pay child maintenance for
• whether the child stays with the non-resident parent at least one night each week.

Changes in your family could mean that the amount of maintenance that needs to be paid might change. You should let them know if any of these things happen

• new living arrangements - if the child who child maintenance is being paid for starts spending significantly more or fewer nights with the non-resident parent
• if a new child starts living with the non-resident parent, either because they or their partner has given birth or for any other reason
• if the number of children that either parent gets child benefit for changes
• if the child who maintenance is being paid for leaves full time education.

I hope this helps.
Baz

Originally Posted by ODC

Does anyone know if I can send a S.A.R - (Subject access request) to the CSA

Yes, but you might not have to. I wrote and asked for all the information they had, and they did eventually supply it for free.