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The Law and You: School fees and child support

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The Child Support Agency assesses the amount of child support a parent must pay. It does so using a set and tested formula, designed to be fair.

What formula does the Child Support Agency use?

The formula is based on the average cost of providing a reasonable standard of living to an average child in an average household relative to the income levels of the parents.

What if I don’t feel the assessed amount is fair?

If you feel the assessed amount does not reflect your special circumstances or the special circumstances of your child, you can ask for it to be changed through a set process.

The Child Support Agency can consider a request for change up to 18 months retrospectively or longer if the Court determines this is in everyone’s interest.

Under what circumstances will the assessment be changed?

To change a Child Support Agency assessment, you must meet one of 10 reasons under child support legislation.

One common reason is ‘the high costs of caring for, educating or training the child in the manner expected by the parents’. This often relates to paying private school fees, uniforms and other necessary expenses associated with private schooling.

The starting point for applying for a change is if both parents agreed to the private education. One parent cannot enrol a child in a private school without the other parent being consulted and agreeing, and then expect the other parent to pay extra costs. A unilateral decision can only succeed if the child has special needs.

What if I want to pay school fees to a third party such as direct to my child’s school?

A paying parent can pay part of their child support directly to a third party such as the school the child attends. The Child Support Agency can treat these ‘non-agency payments’ as a credit of up to 30 per cent of the paying parent’s liability for child support.

For example, if a paying parent has a child support liability of $300 a month but pays $100 directly to the school the child attends and the remaining $200 to the other parent, the paying parent can receive a credit of $100. In other words, the parent who is paying only has to accept $200 as full payment of child support assessment.

The maximum credit allowed for non-agency payments is 30 per cent of the assessed amount of child support.    

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