Late or Missed Payments

 
#childsupport #CMS #childmaintenance #childsupport2023 What happens When the Child Maintenance Service Are Told Payments Are Late

Hello, how are you doing my name's Keith and I'm a dad, and I pay child maintenance through the Child Maintenance Service. So I thought today, I would talk to you about what happens when someone reports that you haven't paid, and what happens next. In order to report a missed payment, the CMS system does not allow reporting of missed / late payments until three working days have passed. This changed in November 2023. Prior top that it was a minimum of 5 working days. So if you're due to pay on a Friday, then the following Wednesday, if you haven't paid it can get reported, so if you're paying parent you can make after 3 working days. What happens next is the CMS will send a text message to the last known phone number that they have, and it will say, somewhere along the lines of, it's been reported that you haven't paid Child Maintenance please contact them so what do you do next. The paying parent must not avoid responding. If they do, it may simply be considered as beign non complient leading to Collect and Pay. Also the trouble is if you ignore it automated systems may mean that something may happen anyway, so what experience tells me with CMS that essentially you have to make a response and that response needs to be done normally within 14 days so what what you should actually do if you are a paying parent is respond within 14 days and obviously the quickest way to do that is via the portal. I do appreciate though that some people refuse to use the portal but what I would say is if you use the portal it goes directly to your CMS account and therefore it goes directly to the person dealing with it. If you send evidence by post it could get lost in the post, but also all post that goes to CMS does not go directly to CMS, it goes to a mail handling centre, which is run by a private company. I'm not quite sure of the process but I believe at that point they scan your mail into the CMS computer system and obviously it gets allocated to a case and of course if you don't send information that identifies who you are, t's possible that they will get it but they won't be able to match the information to to you. Maybe because you've not put your reference number on there or maybe because your name's John Brown and there's 15 John Brown's, but you've not given your address so that's why I always say use the portal and for those who use the portal you go to the portal and you're essentially complete an online form. So you know all that I'm aware that there are some people out there that have this happens to them quite often, so I presume if they're not already doing this they do this, you just go online you fill out the form and it will say on there you haven't paid from such and such a date it will then list your payments. You then type in how much you've paid and you press submit then you need to back that up with supporting information. This is the time where you take a photograph of your bank statement and you upload it to the portal obviously the portal takes certain file types jpegs PNG files which are the normal files that you use for sending pictures, so you can send the pictures you can do this from your mobile phone you don't need to sit next to a computer and then of course at some point someone from CMS will look at this and make a decision. I personally would challenge and keep on challenging until I get an answer so if I'm accused of not paying, then clearly I would submit the information as quickly as possible to prove it, I would then probably follow that up with an email now obviously the CMS normally don't have emails but you can always email the child maintenance Service via the Department for Work and paensions. The email address fo child maintenance is correspondence@DWP.GOV.UK There are other email addresses that float around but that's the one I suggest you do because at least then it's going to the Department of Work and Pensions and they deal with it from there. For those who don't know the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is a part of the Department of Work and Pensions, but personally I'd rather an email go to someone in the DWP bit so that they deal with it then the CMS Direct and that's it. Within 14 days it should be done. Now my recommendation is this if this keeps on happening to you, this is a form of financial abuse so if you find you are regularly being asked to pay prove that you've made a payment and you've made those payments report it, report to CMS when you upload your evidence upload a letter and ask them to record on your account that you are being financially abused and that your ex does this from time to time. Chapters: The video above has been split into chapters as follows. 00:00 Introduction 00:48 What Happens Next? 03:14 Evidence Your CMS Payment 05:53 Summary

Scrap Collect and Pay Fees

 Child Maintenance Service Collect and Pay Fees

#childsupport #cms #childmaintenance

Did you know parents that pay child maintenance through the Child Maintenance Service Collect and Pay service are charged a 20 percent fee, none of which goes to the children, that is wrong. Stop the fee, stop it now. Roughly 90 per cent of all CMS cases involve a man paying his ex female partner child maintenance. Where the CMS use the Collect and Pay method, the paying parent is charged a 20% fee. The receiving parent is also charged a fee, but that is set at 4%. There is a clear discrimination here. 90 per cent paying are male and are charged 20% 90 per cent of people receiving are female, and are charged 4% This is therefore a form of discrimination. It is of no consequence that 10% of payers on collect and pay are female. What is important is that the majority of payers are male and they pay 20%, where as the majority receiving are female, yet they pay 4%. The fee for collect and pay needs to be abolished, or at least to be equal.

Remember, none of the fees reach the child.

This is How Much CMS Make From Parents So the paying person is paying £120 per week. The receiving parent only receives £96. The Child Maintenance Service keeps £24. Over 1 year (52 weeks), the CMS gross profit is £1248. Our Advice CMS procedure is that after 6 months of being on Collect and pay, the paying parent may swop to Direct Pay, but before that happens they have to pay a further 6 payments by direct debit. We suggest paying parents contact the CMS, at the 6 month point and ask to go to Direct pay. Its better to pay a further 6 months in fees, then to reject the move to direct debit, only to still, pay six months of direct debit at a later date. We also advise that paying parents complain to the CMS about indirect sexual discrimination in relation to how the fees are applied. Should anyone be able to take this further by legal means, please get in touch. Links

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Tax Years and CMS

Lets discuss the topic of CMS and the latest available tax year. While this might not be the most thrilling subject, I've noticed numerous online posts expressing confusion about CMS using the 21-22 tax year instead of the 22-23 tax year. Let's clear up this confusion.

But first, here is a related video.   

The CMS regulations mandate the use of your most recent taxable income figure as provided by HMRC. However, it's essential to understand that "latest available" doesn't necessarily mean the most recent tax year. Allow me to explain. For instance, even if today is in June, CMS might not be using your tax year that concluded on the 5th of April. There are a few reasons for this. If you're someone who does self-assessment, your tax return isn't due until January 31st. Even if you submit it earlier, HMRC's processes are geared towards finalizing tax years after the January 31st deadline. Consequently, the tax return might not be accessible before that date. This explains why CMS might use your 21-22 tax year in most instances, especially if you're a self-assessment taxpayer. If you're not involved in self-assessment and are a standard employee with no additional income sources, your tax year ends on April 5th. This means you'd expect to be billed for the 22-23 tax year in 2023. However, it's not this straightforward. The key is the latest available tax year from HMRC, and this isn't necessarily the tax year that just ended. For example, employers have to produce P11D forms, which contribute to your taxable income. However, their deadline isn't April 5th; it's typically later in June or possibly July. Consequently, there's a window of several months where your latest available tax year isn't the one that just ended. So, if your annual review is in June, you might be billed based on the 21-22 tax year. If we're in August, then the billing should shift to the 22-23 tax year. This shift in billing depends on whether you're a regular taxpayer or a self-assessment taxpayer. Keep in mind that CMS uses the latest available tax year from HMRC. This doesn't necessarily coincide with your most recent tax return submission, as HMRC's processes could still be ongoing. Unfortunately, there's no way to correct this on your own. Sending in your most recent tax return won't help, and it might even work against you due to tax thresholds. So, you'll need to accept the situation and remember that in a year's time, CMS will base their calculations on the next tax year. To clarify a couple of points, the tax year spans from April 6th to April 5th. Additionally, CMS relies on tax years because they provide a consistent view of income, avoiding wild fluctuations. Whether you're a seasonal worker or not, CMS aims to maintain income consistency for both parents involved in payments. To sum up, the most recent tax year used by CMS is the one supplied by HMRC, not necessarily the most recent one you've filed a tax return for. If you've filed your tax return early, hoping to skip a year, that strategy won't be effective. Conversely, if circumstances are the other way around, you won't pay a higher amount immediately, giving you time to save. I hope this explanation clarifies things. Have a pleasant evening and take care. Goodbye!