Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether a paying parent is able to decide that they do not need to make child maintenance payments when their income and tax liability is derived overseas but are resident in the UK.

If a paying parent is found to be habitually resident in the UK, the Child Maintenance Service has jurisdiction to perform a calculation, once a legal liability to pay child maintenance is established. The maintenance calculation will be based on information held by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) about their earnings for the most recent complete tax year.

Access to income information reported by HMRC allows us to capture a much wider range of income types received by paying parents, including income from property, savings and investments (including dividends) and other miscellaneous income. In December 2018 we introduced new powers which also enable us to target complex earners via a calculation of notional income based on their assets.