Family Tax Benefit (FTB) and Child Care Benefit (CCB) debts for the 2000-2001 income year 107-04090060

The $1,000 waiver applies to the 2000-2001 reconciliation year. This was the first year of the new Family Tax System. The waiver helped families adjust to the changes.

Legislation specific to the 2000-01 financial year allowed Services Australia to waive the first:

• $1,000 of a customer's FTB debt and
• $1,000 of a customer's CCB debt

The $1,000 waiver provision applied automatically at reconciliation for debts of:

• FTB paid as instalments during 2000-01
• FTB paid as a combination of instalments and a past period claim via the ATO or the agency for 2000-01
• CCB received as reduced child care fees during 2000-01

Some customers received a percentage of the full FTB rate for a child (shared care and blended family customers). They are entitled to the full $1,000 waiver. Individually, if it applies to their debt.

The Resources page contains examples of how the $1,000 waiver applies to FTB and CCB reconciliation debts.

Customers must receive notice of a debt.

Letters did not automatically issue for some records. This occurred when re-reconciliation was manually completed. Some customers would not be aware of their re-reconciliation result, or entitlement to the one-off $1,000 waiver.

A manual Q418 letter was created to ensure customers were aware of all information relating to their reconciliation for 2000-2001.

A Q418 letter included:

• debt details and
• special arrangements introduced including
• the transitional $1,000 waiver

For debts of more than $50 and the debtor is not receiving Centrelink payments, an Interest Charge (IC) applies. The existing re-reconciliation letters should include an IC warning message. The IC is to encourage people to repay their outstanding debts in a timely fashion.

An IC applies to their debt, after the debt due date. If they have not repaid the amount in full or made an acceptable payment arrangement. Interest adds daily until receipt of a payment. They must keep making the agreed repayments until the outstanding debt is paid.

For further information, see Interest Charge (IC) for Centrelink debtors no longer receiving payments.

The Q418 was not suitable in all cases. A manual free text letter (Q999) was used. The Q999 needed to include all mandatory information for the following debts:

• Family Assistance Office (FAO):
• circumstance overpayments for the 2000-2001 financial year
• raised prior to reconciliation and
• where customers may have requested a review or
• it may have been held pending the passage of the $1,000 waiver legislation
• Re-reconciliation overpayments where:
• an overpayment existed before the re-reconciliation and
• it was more than $1,049.99 and
• the recalculated overpayment before waiver action, is less than $50
• For overpayments that occur after re-reconciliation where:
• there has been a waiver applied to the original reconciliation overpayment with
• a reason code other than TWF, TWC, IFR or LTF