child support arrangement

 Author: DamienATO(Community Support)Community Support

20 June 2025

Hi @TW92 :)

You only report what you actually received or paid, not what Child Support (CS) calculated.

For you (the receiving parent):

If you’ve got a private agreement and your ex hasn’t paid anything during the year, then:

• You don’t include any child support as income in your tax return.
• CS payments are not taxable (so even if you had received them, you wouldn’t need to declare them as income).

So in your case, if you received $0, you report $0.

For your ex (the paying parent):

They only report what they actually paid for CS. If they paid nothing, they write $0 at that question. This is used for income tests, not for calculating tax owed. It helps work out things like eligibility for certain offsets or benefits.

About your concern:

Good news, your tax return info doesn’t override your private collection arrangement. Reporting $0 won’t cause any issues with CS if you’ve got a private collection arrangement in place. Services Australia will look at actual payments made, not just what’s in your tax return.

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