Please no hate.
Haven't been sleeping at night properly. And I wont do a full back story. But how much debt do you need to be in with centrelink and the ATP before they send you to jail? I'm really scared...
ATO and centrelink debt
ATO and centrelink debt
Posted in:
Money
9 Replies
I don't think it's the amount as much as how the debt was acquired? Have the legal proceedings started?? Have you sought legal advice??
I think it more has to do with how you got there and if you intentionally lied/if you’re a fraud.
Usually, $20-30k is when you draw attention to yourself.
People have massive debts with ato all the time (work at accountants), you can make payment plans, no biggie, as long as there’s no crime committed. I think the same applies with Centrelink, but don’t have experience with this.
I've known cases where both people frauded around $80,000 but only one of them was jailed for two years. These were totally unrelated cases. The other person had a suspended sentence and walked free.
Mitigating factors were the reason why one was jailed and one wasnt. No two cases are the same, so unless you seek legal advice on your own particular situation, you wont get the right advice on here. We don't know what your mitigating factors are.
Really don't stress too much about it. I have a friend who owed centrelink 20k and when they called him about it he admitted he was in very tough times and made a payment plan of 20 dollars a fortnight
I got a massive debt from Centrelink only due to my husband being made redundant 2 weeks before tax time and getting a massive payout that pushed us over what our yearly estimate was. Had he not been made redundant we wouldn’t have got the debt we just got unlucky.
I pay $200 a month and have been for a couple years now and still have a lot of go.
I have been in a similar position with a VERY large centrelink debt due to underestimating my income. I sought legal advice and it was thrown out of court but I was still responsible for the debt which I am almost finished paying. My advice to you is to seek legal advice asap and set up a payment plan in the interim. Good luck I know how incredibly stressful it is xx
Sama
I was in nearly 22000 debt with them 8 yrs ago, I went to court and was ordered to pay it. Still am, at a very small amt per month. It doesn't show up on credit files like other debts, so even though it's taking ages to pay, I have managed to right my life and get a credit rating etc whilst I slowly whittle it down.