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Maintenence Payments

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  • December 5, 2006 at 2:21 pm #23233
    jowalraven
    Participant

    A claimant has to pay maintenance for her 2 children that live elsewhere. She pays through an attachment to her earnings.

    CAB have argued on her behalf that we should disregard these payments and have used R(IS) 04/01 to make their point. I have yet to read/find this but I understand that it says that the income should be disregarded because as it is an attachment, it means that the claimant does not receive her full earnings and therefore cannot be counted as income. CAB have also argued that this would avoid double-counting because someone paying maintenance would be subject to a benefit reduction and the person received it would be subject to a reduction in respect of the same monies.

    As I understand it, Reg 36 (2) (3) applies together with Schedule 4 and as maintenance payments are NOT mentioned, this income must be included as earned income.

    I would welcome any advice this one.

    December 5, 2006 at 2:53 pm #11570
    markp
    Participant

    Jo,

    I take it that this is maintenance she pays out and if that is so it is not subject to any disregards in her particular case.

    It also cannot be treated as a child’s income and so would be subject to a disregard if the [u:71145eea4f]receiving[/u:71145eea4f] parent is also on HB/CTB.

    That’s how I understand it.

    Mark

    Do I know what I'm doing? The jury's out on that........................

    December 5, 2006 at 3:02 pm #11571
    Kevin D
    Participant

    [b:f8109d86e8]R(IS) 04/01[/b:f8109d86e8] http://www.osscsc.gov.uk/aspx/view.aspx?id=77

    Tricky one – I’d just tend towards arguing that the circumstances can be distinguished. I’d certainly argue that there is no difference between a deduction from earnings being made voluntarily as against by an order; at least for the purposes of [b:f8109d86e8]HBRs 35 & 36[/b:f8109d86e8]. I smell a potential Cmmr case here….

    December 5, 2006 at 3:19 pm #11572
    jowalraven
    Participant

    Yes, she is paying out money each month through this attachment to her earnings.

    This scenario could apply to attachments to earnings for non-payment of Council Tax which would be absurd. Someone could increase their benefit by not paying it on the same grounds!

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