Children: Maintenance

(asked on 18th October 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps HMRC is taking to ensure that records on the income of Child Maintenance Service non-resident parents are kept up to date.


Answered by
Justin Tomlinson Portrait
Justin Tomlinson
This question was answered on 25th October 2018

Basing the assessment on HMRC data has enabled the Child Maintenance Service to significantly speed up the set-up of new cases which can be key to securing regular payments. The previous approach of obtaining the information from parents often led to considerable delays and significant arrears building up on cases right from the start.

Child maintenance is reviewed annually using HMRC data to make sure it is in line with a parent’s circumstances. Between those reviews, parents are required to report any changes in their income that are greater than 25 percent – such changes will trigger a reassessment of the maintenance due.

Income information is provided by HMRC under a data sharing agreement for the most recent complete tax year they hold within the last six years. HMRC determines a tax year as complete when they have accounted for all Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and Self Assessment records.

Each year HMRC receive and process income figures from 33 million Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and 3.3 million Self-Assessment customers. HMRC undertakes compliance activity to ensure that the data reported to them is accurate.

My Department has recently laid regulations which would allow a notional income to be assessed from certain assets. This will ensure that parents who are able to organise their financial affairs to minimise their taxable income, still have an obligation to pay maintenance for their children at a level which reflects their financial circumstances.

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