Rate and payment of Farm Household Allowance (FHA) 002-03030000

• To view FHA payment details, go to Step 2
• If the customer/s:
• has not been paid, go to Step 3
• rate of payment appears incorrect, go to Step 4
• benefit status is incorrect, go to Step 5
• To calculate a customer's rate of payment, see the How a customer's FHA rate is calculated table

Details of FHA payments are available in 3 separate locations.

To view FHA payments, see Viewing payment details for native Customer First payments.

Check the following:

• FHA benefit status is current. If the benefit status is not showing as current, go to Step 5
• Ensure the customer/partner has reported. If partnered, the customer and partner's reporting requirements must be aligned. If reporting requirements need to be aligned, see Table 3, Step 1
• Date and time reported to ensure meets required payment strip
• There is no outstanding Social Service Plans (SSP) to process
• Rates for specific period within SSP. For example, did the customer have precluding income or were overseas for the entitlement period
• Planned payments. For example, is the customer's payment over the system arrears limit. See Table 2, Step 13 in Streaming and processing a new claim for Farm Household Allowance (FHA)

In Process Direct, check the bank account details have been updated in Customer Summary. See Table 2, Step 8 in Changing payment destination.

Note: do not complete a reassessment of entitlement, send an ACTDOC or issue payment via RTGS unless approved by ICT or Program Team.

After completing all checks, if the Service Officer has not found the cause of the non-payment, they must refer the record for further investigation.

Check the customer's rate of payment. If the rate of payment appears to be incorrect, this may be due to an incomplete Change of Circumstance (CoC) interaction activity.

Search for and action any CoC interaction activities that are not completed. For more details, see the Process page in Change of circumstance for Farm Household Allowance.

To check the customer's rate, see Table 2. If the customer's rate is incorrect, refer the record for further investigation.

Note: from 11 June 2020, all FHA customers receive the maximum rate of payment if their FHA rate of payment is greater than zero dollars after the income test is applied.

The customer's benefit status in Customer First may be incorrect due to an incomplete ISIS activity. This may be incomplete because:

• another activity on the Activity List (AL) screen has stopped the activity from automatically completing
• the customer or partner is current on Family Tax Benefit (FTB) and the FTB estimate needs updating after the grant of FHA

Check the AL screen in Customer First.

Is there a started activity with the description Social Service Plan Change Update FHA Status in ISIS?

• Yes, select and finalise the activity. Note: more actions may need to occur before the activity can be finalised, such as updating the FTB estimate
• No, refer the record for further investigation

Exclude:

• income sources related to the farm business (these are recorded on the Real Estate and Business Summary (REBS) screen with FHA in the Rural Exempt field) recorded before 14 November 2020
• deeming from beneficiary loans
• non-farm income up to the allowable deduction applied under the farm business losses

Include:

• ordinary income and non-farm business income as assessed under social security law
• the customer's farm enterprise business income estimate, or their actual business income if business income reconciliation has occurred
• income sources related to the farm business (these are recorded on the REBS screen with FHA in the Rural Exempt field) recorded on or after 14 November 2020

For more details, see Assessing income for Farm Household Allowance (FHA).

Convert each assessable income source identified in Step 1 to a daily amount. Calculate the customer and their partner's income separately.

Daily income amount = amount recorded X percentage owned / number of days in period.

Number of days to use based on income frequency:

• DLY - 1
• 1WE - 7
• 2WE - 14
• HMT - 15.21875
• 4WE - 28
• MTH - 30.4375
• 8WE - 56
• 2MTH - 60.875
• 12W - 84
• QTR - 91.3125
• 3MT - 91.3125
• 6MT - 182.625
• ANN - 365.25

Add all daily income amounts to calculate the customer's total daily income amount.

Round income amount to 4 decimal places.

Note: use ANN - 364 to calculate deemed income from financial investments.

Is the customer's partner receiving a pension?

• Yes, the customer's total daily income = half of the combined income of the customer and their partner. Go to Step 3
• No, go to Step 3

If the customer has a farm business loss recorded:

• deduct this amount from the daily income
• to calculate the daily farm business loss reduction, divide the annual loss by 365.25
• deduct the daily income loss from the daily income amount before determining the affecting income

Calculate the daily income free area (IFA) and income threshold amounts based on the allowance income test for YA/JSP.

If the total daily income amount from Step 2 is:

• less than daily IFA, reduction = $0.00
• more than daily income threshold,
  reduction = (daily income threshold - daily IFA) X 50%
  plus (total daily income - daily income threshold) X 60%

Round income reduction result to 2 decimal places.

Working Credit provisions do not apply for FHA.

Customer 22 years of age or older

The customer's maximum FHA basic rate is the applicable JobSeeker Payment (JSP) rate.

Customer under 22 years of age

The customer's maximum FHA basic rate is the applicable independent Youth Allowance (YA) rate.

Section 24 determinations may apply to FHA customers when their partner is not residentially qualified. In these cases:

• the customer is deemed not to be a member of a couple, and
• is paid the single rate, and
• only their individual income and assets are included in the assessment of their FHA entitlement

Add ons

If the customer is eligible for any of the following payments, the amount they are entitled to is added to their FHA basic rate before applying the income test:

• Energy Supplement - A higher rate of Energy Supplement is not paid to customers over pension age
• Pharmaceutical Allowance (PhA) - Eligibility differences apply for FHA
• Rent Assistance (RA)

Daily rate = fortnightly rate / 14

If the partner is receiving a pension or Dependent Youth Allowance, see Income Test for partnered allowance customers.

Otherwise:

Calculate partner maximum daily rate

• If on income support payment (ISP) =
  (basic rate + Energy Supplement, plus if applicable Rent Assistance + Pharmaceutical Allowance + Allowance Supplement) /14
• If not ISP customer =
  (basic rate + Energy Supplement) /14

Determine partner excess income

• The Partner Income Free Area is the amount of the partner's income beyond which the benefit (including add-on's) would not be payable to the partner. See Income test for partnered allowance customers
• If partner's total income is more than partner's income cut off, partner excess income =
  (partner's total income - partner's income cut off) X taper rate for partner excess income:
• Before 27 April 2020, 0.6
• From 27 April 2020, 0.25
• From 25 September 2020, 0.27
• From 1 April 2021, 0.6
• Otherwise, partner excess income = $0.00

Round income reduction result to 2 decimal places.

See Rates and Thresholds.

Add partner excess income (from Step 5) to customer's daily income test reduction (from Step 3).

Subtract the daily total income test reduction from the customer's daily maximum rate.

The income test reduces FHA rate first (from Step 4).

If FHA is reduced to $0.00, continue applying the income test reduction to other applicable components (from Step 4) in the following order:

• Energy Supplement
• Rent Assistance
• Pharmaceutical Allowance

Round result to 4 decimal places.

From 11 June 2020, all FHA customers receive the maximum rate of payment if their FHA rate of payment is greater than zero dollars after the income test is applied.

If the customer's FHA rate is reduced to nil due to employment income:

• They can continue on FHA for up to 24 weeks (12 fortnights) and retain qualification for a Health Care Card (HCC)
• FHA will cancel due to income on the entitlement period start date (EPSD) of the 13th fortnight, as per current processes

See Employment income nil rate period.

Partnered customers must have the same reporting frequency. If one member of the couple is paid employment income, both members of the couple must be on 2 weekly reporting.

To adjust the reporting frequency, go to Step 2.

Where the customer and partner have the same reporting frequency but have varying reporting due dates, these must be aligned.

To align the reporting dates for 6 weekly reporters, go to Step 3.

In most cases, the system automatically determines the customer's reporting frequency based on their current circumstances.

However, if the reporting frequency has not been correctly determined automatically and needs adjusting, Service Officers will need to manually action the record:

• Launch the Reporting Summary workflow in Customer First
• Select the start date of the current report type
• Adjust the frequency to 2 or 6 weekly as required
• Enter the Reason for Requirement as CLR (Customer Request)
• Complete the Source, Receipt Date and Action fields
• Select Continue
• Finalise the activity via the Assessment Results (AR) screen
• Record the decision on a DOC

If the workflow is unavailable, update the Reporting Regime Details (RPRD) screen in Customer First manually by following the above coding.

Does the customer and partner have varying reporting due dates?

• Yes, go to Step 3
• No, procedure ends here

To align the reporting dates:

• Start in the file of the customer who has the earliest reporting date
• Go to the RPRD screen in Customer First
• Select the start date of the current report type
• Change the frequency to 2WE
• Key the Reason for Requirement as CLR (Customer Request)
• Key the Source, Receipt Date and Action fields
• Select Continue
• Do not finalise the activity at this point

In the same activity:

• Swap to the partner's record
• Go to the RPRD screen in Customer First
• Select the start date of the current report type
• Change the frequency to 2WE
• Key the Action fields
• Key the Reason for Requirement as CLR (Customer Request)
• Select Continue
• Do not finalise the activity at this point

In the same activity:

• Swap back to the customer's record
• Go to the Report Results (RR) screen, which may now have a report due for a past period
• Process the outstanding report on the RR screen
• Swap to the partner’s record
• Go to RPRD screen and change the reporting frequency to 6WE
• Swap back to the customer's record
• Go to the RPRD screen and change the reporting frequency to 6WE
• Check the records to ensure the reporting dates have aligned

Finalise the activity via the AR screen.