Student Loan Debtors Choosing Bankruptcy
The big question here; If a student loan debt (a debt to the State) is expunged by bankruptcy, why does a child support debt still exist after bankruptcy?
It’s time to break student debt taboo
That enforcement drive is prompting the wave of bankruptcies, she believes. “I think it is becoming more common because the IRD has stepped up collection efforts.”
“If they don’t go bankrupt, the alternative is to be hounded by the IRD forever more,” she said.
She deals with clients from many countries, but Australia is most common.
Anderson gets on well with IRD staff, but acknowledges: “I’m often seeking a different outcome from the IRD.”
All debts to the State are not equal?
If you’re a father with a child support debt, you can be hounded to death by the IRD on behalf of the State, but if you are a student you can either, negotiate a reduction, or rid yourself of the debt by self imposed bankruptcy.
This is interesting.
Child Support arrears is different from Student Load arrears. With “delinquent dads” there is an ‘us and them’, there is a war against the forces of the righteous good ‘us’, and the forces of evil ‘those fathers who walked out on their obligations’
As in any war, there are going to be casualties on both sides, and there are going to be ruinous costs.
Like the was against other ‘terrorist’ groups, there is no clear end point, there is no stage in which you can sign a peace treaty and walk away.
A decision is eventually made to break off the war, hoping that you have done some good, trying to feel good about it all.
With the war against fathers, same process applies. The “Child Support arrears” are ruinous for both sides, not least because they appear as ‘assets’ in the Government’s books.
When the accountants are forced to move much of the ‘child support arrears’ into the ‘bad debt’ column, the Government’s balance of payments is going to take a hit, and the Governments fiscal policies will start to look deficient.
There is only one way forward- and that is for the Government to end the war, and do like Malaysia did with the rebels, or Northern Island did with the Nationalists or Republicans. This wording from the Good Friday agreement would be a good starting point to end the war:
(to uphold the) “principles of full respect for, and equality of, civil, political, social and cultural rights, of freedom from discrimination for all citizens, and of parity of esteem and of just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos and aspirations of both communities”.
Comment by John Brett — Mon 6th April 2015 @ 3:10 pm
Does the State deal in morality?
Isn’t this just about lending money and debt recovery?
Comment by Downunder — Mon 6th April 2015 @ 8:16 pm
Student Loans are debt recovery.
Child Support arrears recovery is extortion
Comment by John Brett — Mon 6th April 2015 @ 8:44 pm
Arrears is a payment not made of time.
Both Child Support or Student Loans could be in arrears, and both could have penalty interest.
Money advanced to mothers via the DPB is a debt to the state which is recovered from ‘a’ father, just as money advanced to the child for education is a debt to the state recovered from (at this stage ‘the’ child) but wait until someone decides to recover it from ‘a’ father! (or ‘a’ parent)
The path from socialism to servitude.
Comment by Downunder — Tue 7th April 2015 @ 11:09 am
Child support penalties regime is currently 10% immediately on a a late payment and then 2% a month thereafter. That is something like 38% in first year and then 27% for subsequent years.
Student loan interest rates are about 6.4%pa and done on a transparent daily balance basis.
Child Support penalty regime makes loan sharks seem like cleaner fish.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Tue 7th April 2015 @ 11:22 am
Downunder- The DPB is a benefit, not a debt. There is no ‘recovery’ process for, e.g. Sickness benefit, Unemployment benefit, etc.
Child Tax (support) bears no relationship to any DPB paid- there is no ledger balancing DPB paid vs Child Tax recovered. The mother/custodial parent does not even have to be on a benefit for Child Tax to be levied.
There is no consideration of the years of 100 % support that the “Liable” parent may have sacrificed his life for before the marriage or relationship was re-structured.
Child Tax is simply a punitive tax by the State for sexist political reasons.
Comment by John Brett — Tue 7th April 2015 @ 11:56 am
Hi John,
There is a very direct link between Child Support and DPB recovery from the liable parent to the state. Some guys who pay several thousand in Child Support each month actually pay more than the DPB (now Sole Parent benefit or Supported Living Benefit (with children). In those situations the so called custodial parent gets a top up from IRD of the “excess” Child Support paid. As such it is a very real recovery process of benefit which is of course one of it’s major rationales for existence.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Tue 7th April 2015 @ 2:37 pm
Don’t ya just love the rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic with all the name changes.
Sole Parent Benefit, hello, unless one of the parents has sadly passed away there are still two parents so “Sole” is a bit of gummint BS.
DPB was earning (and rightly so in my opinion)a very negative reaction due to all the rorting going on by the recipients so we change the name, that should fix it. NOT
Seems child tax should be due for the obligatory name change but I don’t think anyone can come up with a suitable change when although calling it Child Support is obviously a bit of a stretch by anyones imagination. It does so well at making the masses think its all for the good of the children.
At least a student loan is voluntary. You dont suddenly find that the lifestyle choices of someone else have suddenly saddled you with a debt.
Mits
Comment by Mits — Tue 7th April 2015 @ 4:24 pm
The answer to the evils of this system is to educate young men to simply NOT have children. As a nation we do not need to produce children in order to build our population. Luckily we have the many well educated folk of this over populated world willing to immigrate here. Males are deceived when the ‘family’ is projected as a preferred way of life. It is all geared to ensure females have what they want without contributing to it.
Comment by triassic — Thu 9th April 2015 @ 5:39 am
Triassic- I think that the lesson is well learned in most ‘western’ countries, which are not replacing themselves, but relying on immigration.
Comment by John Brett — Thu 9th April 2015 @ 7:03 am
CS debt will never be covered by bankruptcy because most people would protest the evils of this theft from their wages by not paying and then going bankrupt after the children turn 18. these days though you couldn’t do that because the theft from wages is automatic.
Comment by too tired — Thu 9th April 2015 @ 6:04 pm