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34 Comments »

1. 

   I had to check a couple of times that I wasn’t reading from the archives. Yes; you posted this today and it is indeed correct. It’s from 2008. So why, I ask was Peter Dunne pratting around in May this year saying what a great idea he has about changing the child tax to make it fairer..
   http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2428240/Fairer-child-deal-sought

   When will he get off his fat ass and actually DO something ?
   I will shortly be looking after my kids for most of the next month as my ex is flying of with rich partner… of course the custody papers say that we have 50/50 arrangement so I will have to pay for her to go while I look after the kids! Great system…

   Comment by John (Doe ;) — Thu 16th July 2009 @ 10:41 pm

2. 

   Dunne is Minister of Inland Revenue – He has no intention to do anything else other than INCREASE TAX Revenue – So called Child Support is TAX to support intentionally FAILED FAMILY Law and Social Policy – So called Child Support has NOTHING to do with supporting Children – So called Child Support is a cleaverely Spin Doctored Western World TAX extortion Service – Onward – Jim

   Comment by Jim Bailey — Sat 18th July 2009 @ 2:43 am

3. 

   OT, but interesting for fathers

   DNA tests to be sold on pharmacy shelves.

   Comment by julie — Sat 18th July 2009 @ 11:36 pm

4. 

   Interesting Julie, but best posted as a separate thread – your motives could be misconstrued.

   Comment by rc — Sun 19th July 2009 @ 12:40 pm

5. 

   i am wondering..
   could there be opportunity for children suing the mother for depriving them of access to the fathers in early years of development?

   will this win in courts?

   Comment by karan jiahrr — Mon 20th July 2009 @ 4:03 pm

6. 

   A good idea Karan Jiahrr. There are many legal challenges that could usefully be undertaken if only one had the money to pay the lawyers in whose playground such competitions are held. Unfortunately, if a case is lost the Court is likely to award costs against the applicant.

   Comment by Hans Laven — Mon 20th July 2009 @ 9:20 pm

7. 

   Could anyone please advise me how I can find out if I owe any form of income tax or other payments to Inland Revenue NZ I left nz in 1980 on a permanent basis and am now living in Australia. I wish to visit NZ and need to find out my liabilities first.
   regards
   AL

   Comment by Alistair Thomas Lyle — Tue 28th July 2009 @ 3:16 pm

8. 

   call them and ask…

   Comment by karanjiharr — Tue 28th July 2009 @ 5:25 pm

9. 

   I’d like to sue (sp?) my ex for child abuse and mental anguish… bet even with all my evidence I wouldn’t win!

   Comment by Scott B — Tue 28th July 2009 @ 6:29 pm

10. 

    Just launched http://www.soschildcare.com – an online emergency child care finding service where parents can find a nanny, babysitter or aupair at short notice for unexpected circumstances or reasons of sickness.

    In this turbulent economy, most people are feeling vulnerable in their jobs and don’t want to rock the boat by phoning the boss to say their child is sick.

    http://www.soschildcare.com‘s signup process enables child carers to opt in to short notice/emergency care and other forms of care such as shared care, respite care and school holidays cover. The site has a one-of-its-kind Credentials Upload feature, an automated process for parents to request to sight credentials, which takes the awkwardness and hassles out of reviewing supporting documentation.

    Parents and Child Carers can sign up FREE and search profiles FREE. We’re offering free upgrades from Basic to Premium Membership to all users who sign up first and then email us with ‘SOSCC’ in the subject line and their new username in the body of the email (allow up to 24 hours for upgrade to take place), until the end of August 09.

    Comment by Beatrice — Sat 1st August 2009 @ 10:23 am

11. 

    http://taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz/news/archive.php?year=2008&view=590

    And if you really feel like nothing will be done why not email Peter Dunne, give him your feedback. I’ve emailed him.
    [email protected]

    Comment by K — Mon 3rd August 2009 @ 2:12 pm

12. 

    JEEEEZ..it costs $250,000 to raise a child to age 18!!!

    WOW, letsee, thats $267 a week just for food, clothing and “equipment” acording to the IRD.

    So if Mum & Dad spend the same for each parent, that’s $801 a week, just for food, clothing and “equipment”.

    Umm, mortgage, electricity, car, house maintenance and holidays?

    Well, with one child, I guess a family needs at least what? $1500 a week coming in after tax?

    I guess IRD picked on a VERY high Income Earner to calculate the cost of raising a child (probably an MP or Lawyer or High Court Judge)and probably it was an only child spoiled rotten by his parents.

    Maybe IRD forgot to mention that Dad bought child a new Porche for his 16th birthday.

    Comment by Morris — Mon 17th August 2009 @ 5:06 pm

13. 

    I think it’s time to start a thread on the significant issues with calculating the cost of raising children.

    To sum up the problems, when you start analyzing the methodology its just an educated guess because all variations cannot be taken into account when modelling the cost. Its full of assumptions.

    This is the same type of thinking, the so called Child Tax Best Practice, that has produced the same issues in assessment and collection across the world. The families commission is part of that thinking – the thinking that created the problem.

    Insanity will prevail as the problem makers yet again tinker with the flawed solution.

    Here is a simple thought, if parents can agree to sort it out among themselves.

    If parents can sort it out among themselves and work out sharing the care of their children without conflict then it is highly likely that both parties focus on the best outcome for the kids and the children will be nurtured into well adjusted individuals.

    No its more important to collect the tax and penalty tax and grow a matrix of family law and its supporting industry than it is to actually have a system that encourages parents to be a full part of their child life.

    Comment by Scrap_The_CSA — Mon 17th August 2009 @ 6:38 pm

14. 

    How about they come up with a way to get the paying parent to pay his/her child support each month to begin with. Makes no difference the amount of support my childrens father is meant to pay, he just simply doesn’t pay it. Very frustrating when my partner pays his every month and pays twice the amount for one child that my ex pays for two. Maybe being self employed is the way to go if you want to get out of supporting your children ? Seems to have worked for him the last 11 and a half years.

    Comment by Kylie — Mon 17th August 2009 @ 7:12 pm

15. 

    if there was no incentive based legal crap supporting legal theft then yeah more parents would be willing to “can sort it out among themselves and work out sharing the care of their children without conflict”. However bcos of the current legislation in place.. it does not give any rights to the parent who is willing to work at and have shared care. So no it is not work under current legislation.. gotta agree with Scrap.. SCRAP the CSA…

    Comment by karan jiharr — Mon 17th August 2009 @ 8:35 pm

16. 

    how about they come up with making equal shared care compulsory … only make parents pay if one is willing to give over sole custody to the other parent

    Comment by karan jiharr — Mon 17th August 2009 @ 8:37 pm

17. 

    Thats indeed good idea Karan however there are alot of situation where that wouldn’t work. I guess if the two parents lived in the same town it could be a possibilty, that way the children could continue to go to the same schools and continue their activitied. But how would it would the parents lived in different towns. Does that meant the children go to two schools, miss out on sports and activites because they can’t get there?

    Comment by Kylie — Mon 17th August 2009 @ 8:56 pm

18. 

    Also, what if a child can’t live with the other parent for whatever reason. Does that mean they don’t pay child support at all ?

    Comment by Kylie — Mon 17th August 2009 @ 9:00 pm

19. 

    Maybe your ex partner could arrange to pay your current partners ex and cut out the middleman so to speak.
    Bah humbug CS is just a money go round and all the teary eyed bleating “but its for the children” makes no difference.
    If you look at the figure owed and see that a billion $$$ is penalties then this system is obviously not working.
    And I take it all the way back to my original statement that if the children are missing out due to the NCP not paying CS then the Custodial, to quote another poster, has to “suck it up” and do better. You have the children, stop whining that the person who doesnt have them is not playing fair, welcome to the world of seperated parenting where fairness is a luxury and not a right.
    Dribbling here that you should be getting more or your’e not getting your due is pointless.
    We all want the Boss to pay us more, the self employed want the client to pay more,everybody wishes IRD would take a little less but the continuous harping of Im not getting my child support entitlement, which is all for the kiddies not me the children oh somebody save the children. It wears a bit thin. If the children are missing out then both involved should be brought to account. If your EX isnt paying then remember that you chose the Ex

    Comment by mits — Tue 18th August 2009 @ 8:22 am

20. 

    I agree on the thread, but it’s damn complex. IRD have already stated that the more u earn, the more u will spend on your child.

    It comes back to this, the basic essentials.

    1…How much does it cost to feed a child? My son is 12 and eats as much as I do.

    2…How much does it cost to clothe a child adequately? Designer clothes should be out but fashion should be in I think.

    3…How much to educate a child? Text books, school fees, sports & outings?

    4…How much to entertain a child? Where do we draw the line? Playstation3 level?

    5…Holidays? Major expense..local holiday or overseas trip? Is it a part of raising a child? I think yes (take a kid fishin theme)

    These days parents are seemingly expected to be able to afford so called necessities or standards…IPods, Playstations, cellphones, cars, school field trips, Internet, TV.

    I had none of these modern day luxuries when I was brought up. Country living, great food and hand me down clothes.

    Keeping up with technology is what is costing the money these days.

    Morris

    Comment by Morris — Tue 18th August 2009 @ 3:51 pm

21. 

    Only other comment I have to make is this.

    IRD stated that a high income earner will spend 3 times as much on a child as that of a low income earner.

    Do we therefore conclude that a high income earner spends $250k over 18 years, or a low income earner spends $84k over 18 years?

    What does IRD classify as a high income earner and a low income earner, and what difference does it make to the child’s upbringing? Can a low income earner expect their child to attain the rank of CEO or Prime Minister, or does income levels indicate it is only the High Income Child who has any chance of success in life?

    Is their such a thing in a NZ as a happy child despite the income of it’s parents?

    We should all think very very carefully where we headed with this.

    Comment by Morris — Tue 18th August 2009 @ 4:13 pm

22. 

    stop making excuses.. it is workable if the custodial parent wants it to be workable under the current legislation. use the KISS principle… don’t therise.. be practical..

    Comment by karan jiharr — Tue 18th August 2009 @ 7:32 pm

23. 

    it has to be excepetional circumstance.. be real..usually the reason is selfishness of the custodial parent nothing else and due to this the kids and the non custodial parent miss out. It is workable…

    Comment by karan jiharr — Tue 18th August 2009 @ 7:42 pm

24. 

    My former wife and i used a calculation based on the fact we split with enough money for each of us to have a freehold home. we then calculated school fees, ultilities, sports, clothing and all of the day to day expenses. household expenses traditionally we both incur so zero out as we need them regardless. it worked out that each child (2 boys 9 and12) cost $150 per week each so $300 a week, and given they are half hers i pay $150 a week and she gets a wff on the side as her top up. that calculation is fair – until the boys want to live with me half time so i propose zero payment, she is fine until i loose my job through redundancy and wnat an enemployment benefit or to claim half the wff which she does NOT want to give up even though she is entitled to it only half the time. Even though 9 months Unemployed i have continued to pay the $150 each week even when i have the kids. the calculation cannot be a formula, but does need to be mediated and negotiated with reasonable care and influence. (she started off reaosnable until the money was put into quaetion?, Im sure this is most peoples ex wife and we pay them just so they dont lay false claim on us)

    Comment by Shaun — Mon 24th August 2009 @ 11:57 am

25. 

    You know, if it costs that much to bring up a child and you can’t afford all you have to do is say NO YOU CAN’T HAVE IT!! There is no way my expenses as a child came to that amount, my parents didn’t even earn that much! Yeah we are paying $800 a month for two children and my childs father pays nothing. Im working two jobs to compensate the difference (yes I’m a woman who gets off my butt!) and my husband has two kids, one where we don’t even know where they live (never ever seen her) and the other who is in Europe on an OE at the mo (obviously on the CS money). So at the end of the day my child technically misses out but I make dam sure she doesn’t because I work my butt off trying to earn every cent to make her life exciting and not a misery! Go figure when theres women out there creaming it with CS! Im just a sucker I think! No child costs that much t bring up and really how can you put a figure on how much it costs to bring a child up, isn’t everyone suppose to live within their means!!

    Comment by Debbie — Wed 9th September 2009 @ 11:12 pm

26. 

    Hi Debbie, I couldn’t agree more. My wife is in a similar position to you and has trouble helping out her own kids financially due to the mother of my children taking $1600 of my net pay (almost a third)each month thanks to IRD CS. That’s $1600 per month to support 2 children. In other words I not only pay 100% of the costs for raising my kids but also help support their mothers lesbian wine sodden lifestyle. In the meantime my household and extended family suffers. Where’s the equity in that! If IRD CS is a feminist influenced thing I think they have missed their mark. Spouses of non custodial men and their daughters are suffering as a result of this appalling iniquitous social experiment also!

    Comment by Had_Enough — Thu 10th September 2009 @ 8:16 am

27. 

    Morris,

    Essentially my view on costs is essential basic needs such as clothing, food, limited educational expenses.

    I strongly disagree with the assumption that the more you earn the more you spend on kids.The more you earn the more you may choose to sepnd but thats fundementally different than the IRD assunption that the more you earn the more you will spend on kids.

    I dont believe that ascertaining a cost for children is difficult but beyond basics its never going to be better than a guess. (AKA estimate in BS IRD studies)

    see Should we believe the ‘experts’

    I will post a thread on costs of raising children shortly.

    Regards

    Scrap

    Comment by Scrap_The_CSa — Thu 10th September 2009 @ 12:23 pm

28. 

    what a load of crap.

    Comment by Mel — Wed 23rd September 2009 @ 1:35 pm

29. 

    The $250,000 claimed figure to raise a child was an estimate based on a complicated formula that seemed to involve circular reasoning. I had trouble understanding the methodology. I started a letter asking for clarification but gave up. Its measures of expenditure on children, as well as being questionable, were based only on 2-parent families under an ideology that children after separation should have just as much spent on them as before separation. That is of course unrealistic because the separated parents have to fund two households instead of one and will not be able to afford the same for their children as when they stayed together. Here is a link to the full paper; see if you can make any more sense of it than I did.

    Comment by Hans Laven — Wed 23rd September 2009 @ 7:10 pm

30. 

    What I find partisuarly frigthening is the way this research has been spun. The media campgain has portrayed this figure as actual cost not the estimate that it is.

    I have read the report and agree that the reasoning is driven by ideology not logic.

    Regards

    Scrap

    Comment by Scrap_The_CSa — Wed 23rd September 2009 @ 10:21 pm

31. 

    Something that’s been mentioned in the current debate about shared parenting in Massachusetts is a thing called ‘bird-nesting’. This arose from the recognition that kids do best if kept in the same house, rather than shipped from mother to father on a regular basis. The idea is to retain the family house, keep the kids where they are and move the parents in and out a week about. The mother/father needn’t keep up much of a residence for themselves at all, because it would never be used by the kids – they could just go flatting. They could be parent one week, and single party hipster the next. Would certainly cut a hole in maintenance costs.

    Problem is, it might accelerate the decline in marriage. I can imagine a lot of regular married parents who never thought about divorce before suddenly thinking how good it would be to get one week off out of every two.

    Comment by rc — Thu 24th September 2009 @ 5:55 pm

32. 

    I have heard of a case (From Joan Kelly USA Psychologist) where birdnesting happened for 15 years.
    Most find the idea unworkable and that was Dr Kelly’s report as well.
    It might work in early stages of separation but when people have new partners most find the idea of hopping into the same bed that the previous couple have been using the night before an anathema. Clean sheets are good but often more separation is needed.

    Comment by [email protected] — Thu 24th September 2009 @ 6:29 pm

33. 

    My ex and Idid this, it worked well, until we realised how exhausting it was to move in and move out. I don’t know how this generation of children do the week about shared care. I wonder what the long term effects are going to be? It was cost effective because we shared the cost of running the house, one person claimed family assistance which helped feed and clothed the children. We wanted the best for the children. I am now in a situation with a new partner where has shared care with the mother, she can command $21000 off us or if we let her have the kids full time $25000 no wonder we have fathers walking away! I would like to propose we have the children full time which would release the financial pressure for the mother, be more settled for the children. The mother can see and have them any time she wishes. Sigh its a can of worms:(

    Comment by Amanda — Tue 27th April 2010 @ 7:44 pm

34. 

    Just read the next comment, yes this was a problem too!! OOOh yuck!

    Comment by Amanda — Tue 27th April 2010 @ 7:46 pm

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