Ex partner lieing in tax return about his annual income, reducing it by a signification amount. This will invariably affect my child support when I start to claim.
Is there anything that can be done?
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15 Replies
You can't lie on a tax return unless you receive cash in hand or are self employed.
Well he has lied on the tax return he earns around 90k and just got a massive pay rise due to promotion but his fringe benefits weren’t listed therefore reducing his income by $20k
Employers report this info to the ATO directly now, so assuming they're above-board, the information will be cross-checked. If you've got any proof, report it to the ATO
Which country do you live?
Every employer has to report to the ATO. If that is the case, then are liable for hefty fines for not reporting employees figures and tax certificates.
If he's doing it legitimately you can't do anything about it. Say he earns $100k a year but can claim 30k on tax deductions there's nothing that can be done if he's doing it properly. If you believe he's doing something dodgy report him to the tax office.
It’s definitely not above board. As this was the 12 months prior to our separation
Report what you know to the tax office then. If it's the way the employer is paying then you can report them to the tax office.
Why didn't you report him 12 months ago when you knew he was under-reporting???
they match his earnings with the company and his tax return, so he will get caught if incorrect. however, with the tax portal these days, i'm not sure how he could do it dodgy. are you sure you know how his earnings work?
If the employer is helping him have a lower income they can figure out a way to do it. My ex was working for his uncle and they used his partners tfn as well so my ex didn't have to pay as much cs. So they shared his income with the two of them even though she didn't work there.
She never said it was a family business, a company would be crazy to pull something like this for just an employee..
Unless you have hard core evidence he's been earning more and withholding this from the ATO, there's not a thing you can do about it, unfortunately.
My ex did the same thing, his tax income was $144,000 on a childsupport assessment in August, November I got another one saying his estimated income was $98,000. I called and apparently he can do that but if it comes back higher in his next tax return he will incure a debt with me and have to pay it back. Nothing we can do about it unfortunately unless we can prove it, which is near on impossible sometimes.
Currently going through this. I’ve been advised to make an anonymous tip off to the ATO. My ex has currently been flagged and is not allowed to leave the country until he pays the full outstanding CS debt, which is currently close to $50K.
My ex dropped his income from $300k+/year to $90k/year after we separated. (He co-owns a company). He also offset $80k of his income onto me through a trust company we had set up for our kids, despite having my own job and income (I never actually got a dollar from the trust company). Child support went to crumbs for that year and I lost my Centrelink payments for a while. We eventually did a (minimal) settlement and he hid everything. I knew he was doing it but couldn’t prove it. His tax return shortly after settlement = over $2mil for the year.. but CS unchanged because he claimed now I have a few thousand in settlement, so don’t need any extra. CS is also capped. Just a side note, I never knew his income until the first CS statement came though after we separated. He was extremely abusive in many ways and never provided for us as a family while we were married. (Hence me needing a job and having to ask my parents to help with buying food for the kids. We have 3 children). Don’t rely on CS. The whole system is completely flawed.