WA Child Support Assessment Changed?
- Thread starter Hoang Trang
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Not really, but it might appear so superficially. It's more like the small claims jurisdictions in terms of being relatively informal. The marked difference in the AAT, at least in terms of these sort of matters, is that it is more of an 'inquisitorial' system than 'adversarial' (like most courts). That means that the AAT will ask the questions and investigate the relevant issues, rather than having the parties drive it and playing referee. For self-representing parties, this is usually a better outcome for them.
You still appear before a member to have your say, and have to give evidence under oath/affirmation, but they will be quite proactive in the matter. Expect to be given directions about what evidence they want to see and to have questions asked of you.
You still appear before a member to have your say, and have to give evidence under oath/affirmation, but they will be quite proactive in the matter. Expect to be given directions about what evidence they want to see and to have questions asked of you.
I've had experience with the AAT for child support, too, and it's much less formal than a Courtroom. It's more like having a discussion with the member. You can attend by telephone, as well, so you don't have to stress too much about the formalities that ordinarily come with a Court hearing.
We found the AAT much more obliging than the CSA. CSA has its own guidelines and policies, and even though they are meant to represent the legislation, they don't always reflect what's in the legislation accurately.
We found the AAT much more obliging than the CSA. CSA has its own guidelines and policies, and even though they are meant to represent the legislation, they don't always reflect what's in the legislation accurately.
Sorry Sammy if I have over stepped in asking but was your case a matter of the incorrect amount of CS or similar to my situation where your taxable income was increased?
Gee I'm glad you asked - I love telling this story...
OK, so the first thing you need to understand is AAT is just about whether or not CSA used the right procedure in determining the outcome. So you need to understand their rules and the reason for the decision they made.
My ex is cunning and crazy. So hold on for a ride...
The ex insisted that I drop the kids off with her outside the kids school in the mornings after they have stayed with me for the night. She would then take them the 50 metres walk to school. I could see no reason for this as it gave us 3 extra occasions where I had to talk to her per fortnight. But it was a stipulation of her agreeing to 5 nights a fortnight. So I agree...She managed to convince CSA that the time I spend with the kids should be calculated in hours per year not nights like non-crazy people.
See if the school time hours were counted as her hours because I had dropt the kids off with her prior to them attending school that would increase her care % The end result? I would have 34.9% care. So less than the magical 35%. I'm sure you're aware that 35% care changes Family Tax Benefit and child support calculations.
She did her calculations based on a ballpark figure of 20 school fortnights plus half holidays. CSA actually sit down and go through the calendar and do it precisely and each year it could change by about .5 of 1 % because of a range of things especially easter- if easter falls outside the school holidays that would change things for example.... But also the consent orders stipulated that if my birthday fell on a weekend I'd get an extra night and if her birthday fell on a weekend I'd lose a night
Anyways - they agreed to do it in hours. I could not believe it. because by my calculations I had 34.9%. Now you'd think 34.9 would get rounded up to 35% true... But in actual fact, their stupid rules say primary carer gets rounded up and non-primary carer gets rounded down. Madness - but I think it highlights some of my thinking which is that there is a tendency within CSA to favour the primary carer when making decision instead of doing what is right and some of their rules clearly favour primary carer, which really sucks.
So back to the story... They agreed to do in in hours per year. That was gonna cost me about $200 a fortnight in family tax benefit that I would have been entitled to and and extra $80 a fortnight in child support. It also would have given the ex the maximum FTB payable... So when they told me they were doing it in hours I was pretty upset. Infact the nice lady at CSA who was tasked with calling me up to tell me got half way through the conversation and said that this is a mistake and told me to appeal. She also told me that after the call it was her job to do the calculations in hours and log it into the system. I had told her that I could not understand their stupidity and that it was a farce for me to drop the kids of directly outside the school to their mum. She agreed.
Chapter 33 of the stupid saga.
CSA lady calls me back. Tells me she's done the math and the way she worked it out I had exactly 35% care. My birthday that year fell on her weekend so she had to forfeit a night, her birthday fell on a day the kids were already with her Easter was in the school holidays and that helped too. I think the fact it was a leap year factored into the craziness. So the ex's scam fell through. So SHE appealed the decision through CSA claiming that they had done the math wrong. Upon review, the decision was totally overturned and they decided to do it in nights per year. This caused my % to go up again to 39%... OH DEAR. So each 2% beyond 35% decreases the child support I pay by a small amount like maybe $20 a fortnight. So crazy ex is now also angry ex and the gentle breeze of karma is filling my sails with love (I should be a poet) and just for fun I insist the ex continues to meet in the mornings to drop the kids. The ex tells there is no point to the morning drop offs. I explain to her there are two good reasons for it to continue.. Reason 1 - To get her lazy arse out of bed because she can't have a sleep in on those mornings as she has to meet me at 8.45am as that is what is in the consent orders REASON 2 - PUNISHMENT to remind her of all the nasty crap she'd caused me....
So crazy ex is now crazy and really really angry. She appeals to AAT. We go to the tribunal. She moans and wails about being a poor, unemployed single mother, being forced to live in poverty and that she was a victim of domestic violence - she had an AVO against me, but that is another story about how she used that system to get me kicked outa my own house... The nice lady at the AAT tribunal explained that none of that was relevant as the AAT can only make a judgement based on establishing whether or not the CSA had made a mistake in the process they followed in making the decision.... So AAT nice lady let me have my say. I explained that nights or hours, don't care and this was all just about maximising care % so to scam the system because if I was at 34% the ex would get about $350 a fortnight more between FTB and CSA, but it didn't work because they worked in out at 35%.
It gets better.
I then invited tribunal lady to do a google search for my ex's business and tell AAT lady that the ex drives a car that advertises her business. She runs a massage business all cash in hand so the ex is clearly lying when she says she is unemployed. AAT lady tells me that information is beyond the realm of what she can investigate at this point in time BUT informs me that I should tells CSA about the business and if they don't amend my payments because of the ex's business then I should appeal and come back to the AAT as the AAT would quite likely reduce my CS payments because clearly the ex isn't unemployed as she has been claiming and clearly has an earning capacity. The ex is now fuming like 2 yr old tantrum fuming. AAT lady tells us that the nights per year decision will remain and I can now go on my merry way. So as I'm making my way out I'm listening to the shrieking ex who has now turned to complete rage and is giving nice tribunal lady a lecture on feminism, the sisterhood blah blah and the last thing I hear as I walk out of the room is the nice AAT lady telling my ex that she can now 'leave the building or security will be called to remove her"
BUT the big thing you need to understand is that AAT is just about whether or not CSA used the right procedure in determining the outcome. So you need to understand their rules and the reason for the decision they made and have a solid case to demonstrate CSA got it wrong
OK, so the first thing you need to understand is AAT is just about whether or not CSA used the right procedure in determining the outcome. So you need to understand their rules and the reason for the decision they made.
My ex is cunning and crazy. So hold on for a ride...
The ex insisted that I drop the kids off with her outside the kids school in the mornings after they have stayed with me for the night. She would then take them the 50 metres walk to school. I could see no reason for this as it gave us 3 extra occasions where I had to talk to her per fortnight. But it was a stipulation of her agreeing to 5 nights a fortnight. So I agree...She managed to convince CSA that the time I spend with the kids should be calculated in hours per year not nights like non-crazy people.
See if the school time hours were counted as her hours because I had dropt the kids off with her prior to them attending school that would increase her care % The end result? I would have 34.9% care. So less than the magical 35%. I'm sure you're aware that 35% care changes Family Tax Benefit and child support calculations.
She did her calculations based on a ballpark figure of 20 school fortnights plus half holidays. CSA actually sit down and go through the calendar and do it precisely and each year it could change by about .5 of 1 % because of a range of things especially easter- if easter falls outside the school holidays that would change things for example.... But also the consent orders stipulated that if my birthday fell on a weekend I'd get an extra night and if her birthday fell on a weekend I'd lose a night
Anyways - they agreed to do it in hours. I could not believe it. because by my calculations I had 34.9%. Now you'd think 34.9 would get rounded up to 35% true... But in actual fact, their stupid rules say primary carer gets rounded up and non-primary carer gets rounded down. Madness - but I think it highlights some of my thinking which is that there is a tendency within CSA to favour the primary carer when making decision instead of doing what is right and some of their rules clearly favour primary carer, which really sucks.
So back to the story... They agreed to do in in hours per year. That was gonna cost me about $200 a fortnight in family tax benefit that I would have been entitled to and and extra $80 a fortnight in child support. It also would have given the ex the maximum FTB payable... So when they told me they were doing it in hours I was pretty upset. Infact the nice lady at CSA who was tasked with calling me up to tell me got half way through the conversation and said that this is a mistake and told me to appeal. She also told me that after the call it was her job to do the calculations in hours and log it into the system. I had told her that I could not understand their stupidity and that it was a farce for me to drop the kids of directly outside the school to their mum. She agreed.
Chapter 33 of the stupid saga.
CSA lady calls me back. Tells me she's done the math and the way she worked it out I had exactly 35% care. My birthday that year fell on her weekend so she had to forfeit a night, her birthday fell on a day the kids were already with her Easter was in the school holidays and that helped too. I think the fact it was a leap year factored into the craziness. So the ex's scam fell through. So SHE appealed the decision through CSA claiming that they had done the math wrong. Upon review, the decision was totally overturned and they decided to do it in nights per year. This caused my % to go up again to 39%... OH DEAR. So each 2% beyond 35% decreases the child support I pay by a small amount like maybe $20 a fortnight. So crazy ex is now also angry ex and the gentle breeze of karma is filling my sails with love (I should be a poet) and just for fun I insist the ex continues to meet in the mornings to drop the kids. The ex tells there is no point to the morning drop offs. I explain to her there are two good reasons for it to continue.. Reason 1 - To get her lazy arse out of bed because she can't have a sleep in on those mornings as she has to meet me at 8.45am as that is what is in the consent orders REASON 2 - PUNISHMENT to remind her of all the nasty crap she'd caused me....
So crazy ex is now crazy and really really angry. She appeals to AAT. We go to the tribunal. She moans and wails about being a poor, unemployed single mother, being forced to live in poverty and that she was a victim of domestic violence - she had an AVO against me, but that is another story about how she used that system to get me kicked outa my own house... The nice lady at the AAT tribunal explained that none of that was relevant as the AAT can only make a judgement based on establishing whether or not the CSA had made a mistake in the process they followed in making the decision.... So AAT nice lady let me have my say. I explained that nights or hours, don't care and this was all just about maximising care % so to scam the system because if I was at 34% the ex would get about $350 a fortnight more between FTB and CSA, but it didn't work because they worked in out at 35%.
It gets better.
I then invited tribunal lady to do a google search for my ex's business and tell AAT lady that the ex drives a car that advertises her business. She runs a massage business all cash in hand so the ex is clearly lying when she says she is unemployed. AAT lady tells me that information is beyond the realm of what she can investigate at this point in time BUT informs me that I should tells CSA about the business and if they don't amend my payments because of the ex's business then I should appeal and come back to the AAT as the AAT would quite likely reduce my CS payments because clearly the ex isn't unemployed as she has been claiming and clearly has an earning capacity. The ex is now fuming like 2 yr old tantrum fuming. AAT lady tells us that the nights per year decision will remain and I can now go on my merry way. So as I'm making my way out I'm listening to the shrieking ex who has now turned to complete rage and is giving nice tribunal lady a lecture on feminism, the sisterhood blah blah and the last thing I hear as I walk out of the room is the nice AAT lady telling my ex that she can now 'leave the building or security will be called to remove her"
BUT the big thing you need to understand is that AAT is just about whether or not CSA used the right procedure in determining the outcome. So you need to understand their rules and the reason for the decision they made and have a solid case to demonstrate CSA got it wrong
Are you using Empirical or Anecdotal Evidence?
The 2014 Ombudsmans report tended to suggest that both payer and payee, male and female, get screwed quite evenly. Agree with your post otherwise!Hoang. Just wondering if due to you not having a recent 'full time' tax return, if the CSA have decided to use the MTAWE as your income in their assessment? This is $72,462 for 2017.
Marty I know you were not asking me - but I take as empirical evidence that the payer gets screwed - which is predominantly the male given that they round the payer down when calculating care % and the payee up. now given that every 2% makes a difference to payments and sometimes when it means meeting one of their thresholds like 35% it can make a huge difference to $$$. And it is their rules that stipulate this method of rounding. 34.99999 becomes and as a primary carer 64.1 becomes 65.
Now my year 8 math teacher will tell ya I'm pretty dumb at math But even I know how to round to one or two decimal places.... Why can't CSA use the same formula as my yr 8 math teacher
Now my year 8 math teacher will tell ya I'm pretty dumb at math But even I know how to round to one or two decimal places.... Why can't CSA use the same formula as my yr 8 math teacher
Marty - definitely anecdotal, but from more than just my own experience.
Sammy - The rounding part is not up to CSA, it's written into the legislation at section 54D of the Child Support (Assessment) Act. So, you can blame the politicians for that one.
Sammy - The rounding part is not up to CSA, it's written into the legislation at section 54D of the Child Support (Assessment) Act. So, you can blame the politicians for that one.
Are you using Empirical or Anecdotal Evidence?
Hoang. Just wondering if due to you not having a recent 'full time' tax return, if the CSA have decided to use the MTAWE as your income in their assessment? This is $72,462 for 2017.
Get this mate. they combined my two years tax return prior to the commencement of child support assement (2013 and 2014). Calculates the average and the added an extra $15k on top!
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