There are no set rules or regulations as to what child support payments can and cannot be used for in Australia. Ordinarily, the amount might be used to cover expenses involved with raising a child, such as food, clothing, housing, medical costs, school costs, and other activity-related costs.
Child support can cover a range of expenses including clothing, education, housing, food, transport and healthcare. When child support is assessed by DHS, they will send a letter reporting on their assessment, determining a lump sum to be paid regularly to the primary care-giver.
Child support as assessed by the Child Support Agency formula is meant to cover all expenses for children including food, housing, schooling, clothing and extra-curricular activities.
The purpose of child support in Australia is to ensure that the well-being of children is properly maintained, and that both parents are meeting obligations to financially support their children after a divorce.
In Australia shared custody means that the non-residential parent pays child support to the residential parent. In the case of a 50/50 split, the higher earner usually pays child support to the lower earner to ensure the children's standard of living is the same in both locations.
50:50 care can also be considered naturally fair in financial terms. We know that parents with higher incomes tend to spend more on their children. So, in a 50:50 care situation, the parent with the higher income would normally spend more. That happens without the need for forced payments.
If you don't pay your child support in full and on time, we may apply penalties on the outstanding amount. You pay the penalty amount to the Australian Government, not to the receiving parent. If you pay the overdue child support, we may reduce or remove the penalty from your account.
Child Support is financial support for a child under 18 years of age. Child Maintenance is financial support for a dependent Child over 18 years of age.
Normally child support stops when your child turns 18. If your child's in secondary study, you can apply to extend it to the end of the school year.
Does Child Support Change if my ex-spouse remarries? No. Only the income of the parents of your children is taken into account in the assessment of your child support payments. Furthermore, a new spouse of a child support payer is not responsible for making child support payments.
Generally, you will not need to pay tax on child support payments that you have received. This is the same for recipients of spousal maintenance payments and is due to the fact that the Australian Tax Office does not include these payments as income.
Prescribed expenses.
You can also apply to Child Support to have spending recognised. Only certain types of expenses are eligible, including School uniforms and text books, Child care payments, Medical and dental expenses, School fees, Housing expenses such as rent, and Motor vehicle costs.
Child support may cover the costs of childcare expenses such as daycare services, babysitters, nannies, or other childcare costs and fees. This is the case if one or both parents are unable to care for their child due to time constraints with work.
Centrelink family assistance and child support payments are closely linked. You must apply for child support from the other parent by contacting Child Support to be eligible to receive more than the base rate of Family Tax Benefit Part A. How to apply for child support is explained below in section 6.3.
In Australia, parents have a legal responsibility to financially support their children, whether they are biological, adoptive or same sex parents. Parents can make an agreement about child support or they can apply to the Services Australia (Child Support) for an administrative assessment.
Child support payments are lower if you have at least 2 nights with the children per fortnight. The amount drops again if you have 5 nights and then keeps reducing as the number of nights increase. See our online calculator / estimator.
You need to deduct tax from her gross payment. You must do this before making any child support deductions.
In Australia, parents are not imprisoned for failing to pay child support.
Where you have a private arrangement in place, salary packaging will not generally have any impact on your child support payments. Salary packaging may impact the amount of benefit you receive from Centrelink, and other financial payments such as Child Support.
In Australia, there is no minimum age which a child can legally refuse to see a parent following divorce or separation. Of course, once children of divorce reach the age of 18 years they can make their own decisions about where they live or which parent they want to spend time with.
A mother cannot deny a father access to their children in Australia. There is a presumption of equal and shared parental responsibility. Only an order from a local court, Federal Circuit Court or Family Court of Australia would be able to stop a father from accessing their children in Australia.
Alternating weekends: A common 80/20 arrangement, the alternating-weekends schedule has the child live primarily with one parent and stay with the other parent every other weekend.
The most common arrangement is that the mother takes 66-84% custody of the child or children, while the father takes 14-34%.
There is no set time for a father to be absent to lose his rights in Australia. The only way for a father to lose their parental rights is through a court order made through the Family Court. Sole parental responsibility is when one parent is responsible for the major long-term decisions of the child.