Family taper for the Parental Income Test (PIT) 108-02010080

This includes children who are subject to a Parental Income Test (PIT) using the same parental income, and recipients of or attracting:

• Youth Allowance (YA)
• ABSTUDY Living Allowance
• ABSTUDY Group 2 School Fees Allowance (means tested component)
• Assistance for Isolated Children (AIC) students receiving an Additional Boarding Allowance (ABA)

It also includes children who meet the definition of an FTB child or regular care child.

Siblings sharing one or two parent(s)/guardian(s) for the purposes of the PIT are considered to be part of the same family group. See Determining a dependent child for inclusion in the family pool for the Parental Income Test (PIT) for more detail.

The Family Pool Summary guided procedure shows by date when there is a change to the family pool. It displays the:

• recipient’s maximum rate
• family pool maximum rate for the recipient and all siblings within the family pool, and
• recipient’s percentage contribution towards the family pool

The Dependent Youth Rate Summary (!DYRSUMM) screen in Process Direct and (!DYRSUMM) in Customer First displays the:

• payment status of the recipient
• active siblings as of that date, and
• rate calculation information for the recipient

Hovering over the underlined amount in the Rate Calculation information table (only in CF) will display the calculation results for each step before determining the PIT and/or Maintenance Income Test (MIT) Reduction Amounts and the recipient’s rate of payment from the date displayed onwards. Changing the date using the drop down option (in CF) or by selecting a date from the calendar (in PD) will display the historical rates for the recipient.

Both the guided procedure and !DYRSUMM screen explain the PIT and MIT affected rate and the Income Portion Percentage calculated for the recipient. This screen also shows whether the FTB Part A Supplement is included or excluded from the Family Pool component.

Note: ABSTUDY students who are currently not receiving any Living Allowance will display as a zero rate.

From 1 July 2010, the NSC screen no longer has sibling concession amounts for each sibling, and only shows a 'zero'ed amount for each sibling.

Other sibling details, for example names and dates of birth, must still be entered by the Service Officer so the family taper rate can be calculated. For information about this process, see Linking sibling records with customers/students/Australian Apprentices/job seekers - Parental Income Test (PIT).

Upon restoration of the first dependent child, any siblings in the family pool who have been cancelled PIH (Parental Income Too High) will have their status changed to Pending Sibling Reassessment (PSR) The system will then attempt to auto restore the recipient from the PSR status. See Youth Allowance at pending status (YAL/PSA) and dependent siblings. Bulk restorations are allowed for multiple siblings on the Family Assessment Result (FAR) screen.

For siblings who have lodged a claim, a one working day pending sibling assessment period, occurs to enable the new claim processing of other dependent family members who have had their claim rejected PIH or PIA. See Youth Allowance at pending status (YAL/PSA) and dependent siblings.

Where the cancellation or variation of a sibling's payment triggers a 'CAN-PIH' (Parental Income Too High) action across other siblings' records, a DOC must be created on all affected records to advise staff why the payment is cancelled. The DOC must identify the sibling using a Customer Reference Number (CRN) and state as follows:

'Recipient Cancelled - Parental Income Too High. Circumstances of dependent sibling (insert CRN here) have changed causing cancellation of record across family group'.