Tax on maintenance payments

[foliedouce]

theboss said:

Quite right, must have missed that bit!

I agree with others saying child maintenance should reduce benefit eligibility. My ex gets £3.5k net monthly in benefits and child support. Why would she ever want to operate a check-out in Sainsbury’s when she can sit on her backside having hair and nails done whilst netting £60k equivalent income. I even have the kids every weekend and during her umpteen childless foreign holidays per year (like this week) so she only has to do the school run and give them tea yet maximises her entitlements as the “primary” caregiver.

Nail, head. I have my kids 40% of the time, every other weekend from Friday school run to Monday school run and 1 night during the week again I do the school pick up and drop off the next morning plus holidays.

My wife lives in a house I bought her - don’t begrudge that as I want my kids to live somewhere decent, but shame she wouldn’t agree to putting it in trust for them.

Why does she need to get a ‘proper’ job? The thing that I do begrudge is the BS her and her lawyer came up with during the divorce to get higher maintenance was ‘she gave up her career to have kids” ?? she was a £21k administrator who got made redundant 9 months into our relationship.

What’s her motivation to restart her ‘career’ and be self sufficient? None whatsoever. Surely that doesn’t encourage personal responsibility?

I did offer to have the kids 100% of the time so she could focus on her career but she refused!

Even if we split the kids 50/50, I still have to pay her a shed load every month as the ‘primary carer’ How does that work? Surely we then have equal costs / responsibilities especially as she doesn’t have a mortgage to pay yet I do having had to remortgage my house to buy hers. That was a house I owned before we got together solely in name.

I’ll always look after my kids including paying their school fees but the law is very one sided in this country.

Edited by foliedouce on Thursday 18th April 20:01

Edited by foliedouce on Thursday 18th April 20:01

[foliedouce]

basherX said:

I'm amazed to discover that these days maintenance payments are not considered when working out means-tested benefits. I'm way out of the loop on the whole CM and benefits stuff but when I worked at the CSA 20 years ago we definitely had cases where the child maintenance in specific cases hit a point where the recipient lost some (or all) of their benefits. Surely the amount of benefits provided includes a calculation for dependents? Meaning that the taxpayer now gets hit with a bill for childcare where, arguably, the parents jointly, even though separated, can cover it.

As to whether payments should be tax deductible, Jesus. Imagine if that were the case- there'd be marital arbitrage all over the place. As said above- it's not a tax deductible expense, it's a contribution towards the upkeep of *your* child(ren).

CM is not means tested as it’s for the children, SM is now means tested.