Child Support Services has accepted my former husband's provisional income from a previous tax return which now determines that he pays $0.00 in child support costs. My former husband receives cash in hand and brags about his '$100 drawer' as a self employed tradesman and has just spent a month overseas in India. I have already appealed this issue through Child Support Services in past based on his actual vs declared ATO income impacting the Child Support assessment and again just recently. I am at a lost that the ATO accepts a missed tax return from a self-employed Trade business and a pure lack of investigation as well as lack of care and understanding to the impacts that this has on my financial position and the provision of expenses for my child. I have yet again lodged another appeal through Child Support Services but their assessment is based on what is declared through the ATO which in the first instance is wildly inaccurate and secondly now not even current. I spoke to the ATO late last year and was informed that this issue of a 'provisional income' should be flagged on the ATO system to audit. Apparently this issue has sat idle and is having an ever increasing detrimental financial impact for me and my son but no change (if anything an improvement) to my former husband's financial position.
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Hi @JanoMac14,
Child Support assessments are managed by Services Australia. They generally base their calculations on taxable income reported to us. If your former partner hasn’t lodged a current tax return, they may use a provisional income based on previous years or other available data.
We can’t intervene in child support calculations. We do look into concerns about accurate tax reporting, and that's something we can act on.
If you believe your former partner is under-reporting income or not lodging returns, there are steps you can take to submit a tip-off. This includes situations where someone is receiving cash payments and not declaring them. We treat these reports seriously and confidentially.
If a tax return is overdue, we may take compliance action to ensure it’s lodged. You can’t request an audit directly, but providing detailed information through the tip-off process helps us prioritise cases.
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