Family Tax Benefit (FTB) customers with court order or a court registered agreement 277-51070050

Customer is claiming more than base rate FTB Part A for a child for whom they have a court order or court registered agreement for child support.

If the customer is claiming FTB for the child or advises they have separated from the child's parent, see Claiming Family Tax Benefit (FTB) instalments for children in care other than a newborn or adopted child. The customer will need to provide a copy of the court order/agreement.

If the paying parent is overseas, the customer may have sought a court order to enable collection by Child Support.

Alternatively they may already be privately collecting an overseas court ordered amount of child support and elect not to register the order with Child Support. In these cases see Paying parent lives overseas for details of how to manually record the maintenance income and appropriate maintenance action test (MAT) code. For these cases procedure ends here.

Is the customer receiving the full amount of the order/agreement privately?

Note: the value of the agreement is not received from Child Support for private collect customers. Only the notional assessed amount is received and assessed.

• Yes, procedure ends here
• No, refer the customer to Child Support as the customer can request Child Support to collect on their behalf. Go to Step 3

Before 1 July 2012, the customer would fail the MAT if they were privately collecting less than the full agreement amount. To receive more than base rate of FTB Part A for child, the customer needed to apply for Child Support collection or apply for an exemption from seeking child support.

From 1 July 2012, the customer will not fail the MAT if they privately collect less than their full agreement amount. The customer will be deemed to receive the full notional assessed amount unless they apply for an exemption from seeking child support.

Does the customer intend to apply for Child Support collection?

• Yes, go to Step 4
• No:
• Tell the customer they will be deemed to receive the full notional assessed amount unless they apply for an exemption from seeking child support
• Procedure ends here

Does the court order/agreement include non-cash maintenance or capitalised maintenance?

• Yes, go to Step 5.
• No:
• Child Support can collect the full amount of the court order/agreement and will advise Centrelink of the customer's entitlement and disbursements
• If the customer has applied for Child Support collection, do not record any maintenance income for child from the same payer. Record details on a DOC and refer the customer to Child Support
• Procedure ends here

Is the customer receiving the full order/agreement amount of non-cash/capitalised maintenance directly from the paying parent?

• Yes, procedure ends here
• No, go to Step 6

Refer the customer for legal advice to have the order/agreement changed to cash child support as Child Support can only collect cash child support and is not able to enforce collection of non cash amounts.