What happens when someone is overdue on child support?
Do CSA send them letters? Make calls to them? What is it that they do when payments are not paid on time.
When do they look into talking to their employers and having funds deducted from their pays. That kind of stuff.
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6 Replies
Yeap child support make LOTS of phone calls and send LOTS of letters when you’re over due on making payments.
The paying parent also gets penalty’s for not paying on time and if the debt it very big these are quite high amounts. I don’t believe that gets passed on to the receiving parent though.
They do try and garish wages and send letters to employees regarding it, but if the paying parent is a bit of a dick a lot just dump the job and child support have to start again. Usually this is a long process, first locating the job, then writing to the employer and giving a certain amount of time for them to start the process, so you could be waiting a few months in not (and more likely) longer. They ALWAYS attempt to come to a payment arrangement with the paying parent and sadly allow far to many chances for them to default before taking wages 🥺
At tax time when the paying parent does tax (to assume they do) then any refund is intercepted by child support. However, (always a catch) of the paying parent owes money to the ATO or Centrelink they take the money first and CSA is last.
Not all of the payers tax is used to pay a Cs debt, only a percentage. I have been both a payee and payer and was only ever late once when the payer and it was a month over. I never received a letter or a phone call nor any penalties or late fees, just the usual monthly 'account' letter. When I was the payee it took years to get any sort of payment garnished from his wages (worked same place whole time,but this was over 10 years ago).
I am also of the understanding that a high Cs debt stops your ability to leave the country/get a passport, but I'm not completely sure about that
That’s incorrect, my partner had a massive debt (idiot he is) from before we got together and he’s still paying it off now 4 years later (almost up to date).
ALL his tax return has been used towards the debt (he didn’t have a choice). The 4 he hadn’t done prior to being with me, and every one since being with me. So that’s 8 full tax refunds which have been intercepted.
If you’re in general financial hardship you can apply to stop the refund being applied to the debt (some or all depending on CSA) but the application process is hard to be approved
Of course the only reason they wouldn’t take all of it is if you only owed $50 and the refund was $150 🤷🏻♀️ In this case they’d only take the $50.
This also applies to regular ‘never been late’ payers. My ex when I was with him paid fortnightly for his daughter (every week without fail) never been ‘late’, around tax time one year there must have been an extra week or something which coincided with his tax refund being available and although he’d ‘technically’ paid on time it hadn’t hit CSA and so his account was $21.50 in arrears, CSA intercepted his $1500 odd refund, took the $21.50 and reissued through the accountant (or however it works) the remained of the refund less the $21.50.
It was a little funny and frustrating because it all was credited to CSA at around the same time. He never made that mistake again and started paying extra so the account was always in credit by $60-100 a month 😂 it held up the refund getting to him for an Good extra week or 2.
You’re debt has to be more than just a few hundred $$ for them to chase it up. Someone that usually pays on time and usually does the right thing isn’t going to be flooded with letters or phone calls.
Yes they can stop you from getting a passports or cancelling your ability as well, if they are worried the other parent will leave Australia. I’m not sure how often that’s done though.
Hrmm that's interesting then. My experiences have been different. Maybe it works on a case by case basis 🤷♀️
Perhaps 🤔 but I guess unless the paying parent tells you what they got as a tax refund you’d never be able to know for sure if what you got was all of or part of it.
Also consider do they pay (and owe) for more children to different parents?
Did they owe to the ato or Centrelink. Lots of factors I suppose.
But I can say in all cases I am aware of (I know a few stupid paying parents - both male and female a and they like to sook at me about it) 100% is applied to any CSA arrears (where no other debt exists) if the debt is greater than the tax return.
They will never take more than what is owed, just what’s needed to bring it up to date :)
Is it a private agreement? If it is you need to let CSA know that he's not paying or nothing will happen. If it's CSA collect then yes, they will be doing what they can to contact the other party. If he's changed jobs it could take a while.