taxman Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Billions of pounds owed in child maintenance may never be recovered, government accounts show. The money is owed by absent parents who have been referred to the Child Support Agency. Accounts prepared for Parliament by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) class £2.9bn of the £3.9bn in maintenance arrears as "uncollectable". Single parent charity Gingerbread has called on the government to do more about collecting unpaid maintenance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GLASGOWOODS Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 So they should. My partner has never received a penny in payments from her daughters dad in the 11 years she's been on the planet. He works (self-employed) and likes to see her on a regular basis. His excuse is her mother earns far more than him, so he shouldn't have to pay a penny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skinz Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Would be interesting to know how much child maintenance debt is paid for by a prison sentence in comparison with other "priority government debt" such as the non payment of Tax and rates arrears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Joker Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 His excuse is her mother earns far more than him, so he shouldn't have to pay a penny. Sounds fair. He should sue the mum for maintenance too while he's at it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GLASGOWOODS Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Sounds fair. He should sue the mum for maintenance too while he's at it He also has a child to another person, who has never seen a penny from him. Maintenance for what Joker? All his daughter gets off him is xmas and birthday gifts. No spending money, or money towards her school clothes etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stranza Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 And his half of his daughters expenses, food, toiletries, school trips, rent, utilities etc as well I bet. My sons father thought that he was doing us a favour spending money on fun stuff. He really hated the thought of handing money to me incase I spent it on myself, his version of myself which was the phone bill and house insurance As soon as I could find childcare I was straight back to work. Told him to just pay what he felt he should. That turned out to be £0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GLASGOWOODS Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 And his half of his daughters expenses, food, toiletries, school trips, rent, utilities etc as well I bet. My sons father thought that he was doing us a favour spending money on fun stuff. He really hated the thought of handing money to me incase I spent it on myself, his version of myself which was the phone bill and house insurance As soon as I could find childcare I was straight back to work. Told him to just pay what he felt he should. That turned out to be £0 Too right. After school fees are a fortune! And you have to pay thoughout the summer holidays too. She's at that age now (Diva-dom:D) where things get rather expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister M Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 £2.9 billion in uncollectable child maintenance is more than twice as much that is lost to benefit fraud each year, yet benefit fraud is constantly pushed to the top of the headlines, and they even make lots of television programmes about it. Perhaps it's because we're encouraged to hate benefit fraudsters more than we're encouraged to hate people who don't pay for the upkeep of their children. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stressconsul Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 It seems a terrible thing to refuse to support your own child. No doubt they have a million excuses but I would not be able to sleep at night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eater Sundae Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Do other departments such as the HMRC have the same problem getting back money owed? I doubt it. If not, then maybe HMRC should take over the collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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