5 Section 16C of the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988, and Section 150D of the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989, allows Child Support to request information from the ATO. Ms. P complained to the Ombudsman several times over several years about her child support case. When Child Support makes a new child support assessment (including an assessment made pursuant to a child support agreement), it must.
The recipient of the payment is entitled to receive only the amounts collected by the maintenance agency from the payer. If the child support agency does not collect payments from the payer, the recipient will receive nothing. In the following case study, Child Support delayed the start of wage deductions due to a clerical error.
Garnishee notices
When we investigated the complaint of Mrs. M, Child Support told us that Mrs M's payments were normal. However, her August payment was not automatically reconciled because the employer sent less money than Child Benefit expected. Child Support delayed paying her anything while it tried to contact the employer to find out the reason for the absence.
Mr. J complained to us that Child Support is rushing him to pay about $8,000 in child support arrears. Mr J said the Child Maintenance should get the money from Mr J's former employer, which went into liquidation. The employer made the deductions but failed to transfer all the money to Child Support.
When Child Support's efforts to encourage the employer to comply failed, it failed to refer the employer's case to prosecution. When Child Support learned that the employer had gone into liquidation, it told Mr J that this was now a matter between Mr J and his former employer. Children's Aid told us that there had been significant problems with the set from the start.
In response to our inquiry, Child Support told us it had spoken to the employer to determine why the deductions were not being made as required and highlighted the employer's legal obligation to do so. Child Support told us it expected to recover Mr G's arrears in the next five months.
Tax refund intercepts
Child Welfare acknowledged that it 'should have made more sustained contact attempts with the employer to ensure that they were fully aware of and complied with their child support obligation on [G's].
Enforcing collection in difficult cases
Although Mr. O was working, Child Support told her it could not collect any payment from that source. Child Support was aware that Mr. O was working as a subcontractor under an ABN linked to a. Child Support stated that it did not have the means to administratively enforce the debt collection of Mr. O.
Mrs A complained that Children's Aid was not doing enough to collect from her ex-partner, Mr. B. Each time, Child Support would be told that Mr. B had resigned or terminated his contract. Child Support was unable to identify Mr. B as the owner of any immovable property.
The childcare told us it continued to look for ways to collect payments from Mr B, but none had been successful so far. However, there are penalties set out in child support legislation for failing to comply with a s120 notice. We have noted significant inconsistencies in the level of detail that child support will disclose.
Section 113(2) of the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988 provides that Child Support “may take such steps as [it] considers appropriate to maintain the payee. In our view, requiring the payee to wait until Child Support finally collects the money from the payer may be unreasonable.
General administrative problems affecting payers and payees
In addition, section 34A(2) of the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989) does not allow Child Support to go back the period. Since child support issues can be very complex, it is easy for customers to ask questions if they do not understand the information provided. It also enables Child Support staff to provide appropriate referrals when clients are in need or need additional assistance beyond what Child Support can provide.
However, we are concerned that Child Support seems reluctant to provide written information to customers requesting confirmation of a conversation or advice given orally by staff. We regularly receive complaints from customers who receive multiple letters, often confusing or contradictory, asking the customer to call Child Support for clarification. We continue to raise the need to improve the quality of letters with Child Support and with DHS in general.
In 2013, we received a number of complaints from Child Support customers who said they were not notified in a timely manner that a letter was waiting to be read in their CSAOnline account. Since Child Support does not post copies of its letters to customers who chose to receive their letters online, this was a significant problem. Child Support customers must now create a DHS myGov account to access their Child Support account.
We have recently received several complaints about customers not being able to access past maintenance letters through myGov. In the meantime, clients can contact Child Support by phone to request a copy of these letters.
Overpayments of child support
The payer has the right to take legal action against the beneficiary to recover overpaid child support based on a child support assessment. If those payments have been made through Child Support, Child Support may also be entitled to recover the overpayment from the beneficiary. However, Child Support continues to recover overpaid amounts from beneficiaries in various other situations.
It is also possible for the beneficiary to negotiate with Child Support to have a regular amount withheld from their future payments. Sometimes Child Support will refund the overpayment to the payer before it is recovered from the beneficiary. While his objection was being considered, Child Support intercepted Mr E's tax refund and paid it to Ms F.
In this case, Child Support believed that the overpayment was due to the normal operation of the scheme. According to this arrangement, it would take more than a year for Child Support to recover the overpaid amount. This is in contrast to legislation governing the payer's right to recover an overpayment directly from the payee, by application to a court under section 143 of the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989.
Child Support assured Mrs T that the payment was for her and that it had collected the money from Mr U's tax refund. Nor was Child Support prepared to wait to recover money from the amounts it would eventually recover from Mr U.
The interaction of Child Support and Family Tax Benefit
If a payer doesn't pay regularly, payees can ask child support to start collecting for them. Centrelink will take into account the additional child benefit when the payee eventually receives it. Ms. W contacted our office to complain about a retrospective increase in her child support.
Mrs. W's lawyer wrote a letter requesting Mr. X for the child support he owed her. If her child support is cut, Centrelink will likely reassess her FTB and hopefully clear her debt. Ms. Z received an overpayment of FTB due to a retroactive increase in her child support when new data on payer income became available.
She believed she had done everything necessary to stop the child support assessment. If the child support assessment ends on the child's 18th birthday because the payee has not applied for an extension, he will not take MAT and his FTB will be reduced to the basic rate. Mrs C says she asked Child Support what extending the assessment would mean.
The child support officer did not mention that not renewing the assessment could affect her FTB payments. Ms. D's child support assessment would end by January 1, 2014, if she were able to obtain an extension.
Conclusion
Mrs C asked Centrelink to review a reduction in her FTB, but the ARO upheld the decision that she was only entitled to the basic rate of FTB without a maintenance assessment. However, as a result of our investigation, Child Support reconsidered Mrs C's position and decided to extend the assessment nonetheless. Mrs D's FTB Part A was reduced to the base rate on her daughter's 18th birthday because she failed to obtain an extension of her child support assessment and was deemed to have failed to take reasonable maintenance measures.
Ms D says she has not received the first letter from Child Support inviting her to apply for an extension of her child support assessment if her daughter attends school when she turns 18. can be reduced if she has not applied for an extension of the child support amount. The Office of the Ombudsman receives most child support complaints by telephone, but also receives a few by post, email and fax, and very few in person.
In some cases, staff will decide that investigating a Child Support complaint is not appropriate in the first place, often because the investigation would not provide the complainant with the desired remedy or, sometimes, any remedy at all. Complaints about the operation of the legislation or the taking of reasonable Child Support action that appear to comply with the legislation will not normally be investigated. Ombudsperson staff are required to provide advice to Child Support on the finalization of any investigation undertaken.
However, where an investigation identifies shortcomings in Child Support's handling of a particular case or where its responses highlight a systemic problem, staff may decide to make formal comments to DHS under s 12(4) of the Ombudsperson Act. Child Support is generally given 28 days to respond to these formal comments, although it may take longer to implement the actions required to address the problem.
Annexure two: analysis of closed Child Support complaints, 2012-13
Annexure three: Relevant published submissions and reports
