Circumstances when the Parental Income Test (PIT) does not apply 108-02020030

Is the customer or applicant in receipt of ABSTUDY or Assistance for Isolated Children (AIC) Additional Boarding Allowance (ABA)?

• Yes, go to Step 2
• No, go to Step 3

A dependent ABSTUDY customer or AIC student may be exempt from the application of the Parental Income Test (PIT) if one or both of their parents/guardians are:

• in receipt of a certain social security benefit or pension or DVA payment
• in receipt of Farm Household Allowance (FHA)
• holders of a current Health Care Card (HCC), including a HCC issued on the basis of receipt of maximum rate Family Tax Benefit Part A
• in receipt of ABSTUDY Living Allowance

However the exemption from the PIT does not apply:

• for any period after the expiry date on the HCC
• where a parent holds a HCC because they receive a social security Mobility Allowance (MOB) or Carer Allowance (CA) (in respect of a disabled child), or
• if the applicant or the applicant's partner holds only a Pensioner Concession Card (PCC) or a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card (CSHC)
• where the parent/guardian is taken to be receiving their income support payment entirely as a Home Equity Access Scheme (HEAS) loan or during an employment income nil rate period

If there is an outstanding PIT related activity on the Current Activity (AL)/Future Activity List (FAL) screens, finalise the activity by selecting it from the AL/FAL screen and follow the screen flow.

For more information about exemptions from PIT, see Applying the Parental Income Test (PIT) for ABSTUDY and Youth Allowance (YA) and Applying the Parental Income Test (PIT) for Assistance for Isolated Children (AIC) Scheme.

Is the customer subject to the Parental Income Test?

• Yes, go to Step 4
• No, procedure ends here

A dependent YA customer may be exempt from the application of the PIT if at least one of their parents/guardians is in receipt of an income support payment, except if they are in receipt of an employment income nil rate period or have a zero rate due to the Home Equity Access Scheme (HEAS).

If there is an outstanding PIT related activity on the Current Activity(AL)/Future Activity List (FAL) screens, finalise the activity by selecting it from the AL/FAL screen and follow the screen flow.

For more information about exemptions from PIT, see Applying the Parental Income Test (PIT) for ABSTUDY and Youth Allowance (YA).

YA or ABSTUDY customers or AIC students being assessed on their parent(s)/guardian(s) income and a parent/guardian commences to receive a payment (and are not in an employment income nil rate period or zero rate due to the HEAS) or, for ABSTUDY and AIC purposes, the parent or applicant holds a valid HCC that exempts them from the PIT, the exemption details should automatically be recorded on the Household Income and Assets (NHI) screen of the record.

Exceptions to this rule are for approved Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) pensions, where the DVA payment needs to be verified and manually recorded/updated on the parent record, if not already done.

For coding information, see Payments from the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) and referrals to the DVA Clearance Team

Check the NHI screen has an appropriate Parental Income Test (PIT) exemption reason displayed in the PIT Exempt Rsn: field.

Note: Where a PIT exemption applies, and the parent/guardian has supplied verification of their income, the NHI screen should be updated with these details. This will avoid having to request the parental income details again if the parent/guardians' circumstances change and the PIT exemption no longer applies.

If the appropriate exemption is not on the record, the following should occur:

• access the parent/guardian record. Confirm the parent/guardian is current - but do not give any information to the customer
• if the parent/guardian is in receipt of an appropriate income support payment, check that the customer and the parent/guardian have a PIT link. See Creating, updating and ending Parental Income Test (PIT) links with dependent student, Australian Apprentice and job seeker customers
• if the parent/guardian is in receipt of an appropriate DVA payment, ensure this is coded on the Veterans Affairs Pension Summary (DVAS) screen of the parent/guardian record. For coding information see Payments from the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) and referrals to the DVA Clearance Team
• from the parent record, go to the Next: field and enter PITRSH and press [Enter], then finalise the PITRSH activity via the Assessment Results (AR) screen
• clear out of the parent and customer’s record to allow the activity to ripple the PIT exemption data across
• check the NHI screen on the customer’s record to ensure that the exemption has transferred from the parent record

For ABSTUDY and AIC, where a PIT exemption applies because parent(s)/guardian(s) hold:

• a HCC based on receipt of maximum rate FTB Part A, or
• an extended HCC (see Extended entitlement to Concession Cards) based on long-term receipt of JobSeeker Payment (JSP), a manual PIT exemption may need to be coded.
  Note: if a manual PIT exemption is coded, a review is required because the system will not automatically end the manual PIT exemption once the HCC is no longer current. In Customer First, create a manual review on the Review Registration (RVR) screen and complete the fields as follows:
• Service Reason: ABY or AIC
• Review Reason: REV (Manual Review)
• Due Date: 7 days before the expiry date of the HCC
• Source: INT
• Date of Receipt: today's date
• Notes: 'Check continued eligibility for PIT Exemption based on the parent(s)/guardian(s) being in receipt of a HCC. Return to OB 108-02020030 for action.'
• Keywords:
  for ABY - ACTABY
  for AIC - REVAIC
• Workgroup: leave blank
• Position: leave blank
• Transfer to Region: ABS
• the review will mature on the Due Date coded in the RVR activity. Workload Management will allocate the review for manual action
• an extended PCC and a HCC based on maximum receipt of FTB Part A concurrently, where the HCC has not issued:
• the system should code a Health Care Card Auto (HCA) exemption on the NHI screen
• check the Future Activity List (FAL) screen to ensure an auto review is present. The auto review should be maturing on the day before the Health Care Card Auto exemption is due to cease
• if no auto review is present on the FAL screen, in Customer First, create a manual review on the Review Registration (RVR) screen and complete the fields as follows:
  Service Reason: ABY or AIC
  Review Reason: REV (Manual Review)
  Due Date: one day before the HCC auto exemption is due to cease
  Source: INT
  Date of Receipt: today's date
  Notes: 'Check continued eligibility for PIT Exemption based on the parent(s)/guardian(s) being in receipt of a HCC. Return to OB 108-02020030 for action.'
  Keywords:
  for ABY - ACTABY
  for AIC - REVAIC
  Workgroup: leave blank
  Position: leave blank
  Transfer to Region: ABS
• the review will mature on the Due Date coded in the RVR activity. Workload Management will allocate the review for manual action

For YA customers, arrears are not to be paid. The date of effect for a favourable decision will generally be the date of notification.

If the parent will be receiving the pension or benefit for a set period, there is no need to code a manual review to end the PIT exemption.

Customers with an automatic PIT exemption are not included in the annual Parental Income Test (PIT) reviews. See Youth Allowance (YA) and ABSTUDY annual Parental Income Test (PIT) reviews.

AIC students, for whom ABA is being claimed and who have an automatic PIT exemption, are not included in the income review part of the applicant's End of Year circumstance review. See Assistance for Isolated Children (AIC) End of Year (EOY) reviews.

Automatic reviews will be generated on the YA and ABSTUDY customer’s records when there is no base year parental income data on the NHI screen or Manage Parental Income (NHI) table in Process Direct. A Manual Follow-up (MFU) will be generated for AIC applicants and will be allocated to staff to manually issue a Q999 letter.

The parental income exemption can cease in the following circumstances:

• An Employment Income Review will apply when a dependent YA/ABY/AIC customer’s parent/guardian commences an employment nil rate period due to declaring income that precludes them from their payment, or their payment status changes to current zero rate (CZR) for reason PLS
• A Parental Income Review Period will apply when a dependent YA/ABSTUDY/AIC customer’s parent(s)/guardian(s)'s payment ceases

A 14 day review will be issued to YA and ABSTUDY customers. During this review, payments will continue at the rate previously paid. If the parental income details are not provided within 14 days, the YA payment will be cancelled. ABSTUDY and AIC payments will only continue to pay the non-means tested components.

The review for ABSTUDY and AIC can be extended by 7 days in Customer First by:

• highlighting the review via the Future Activity List (FAL) screen
• selecting the To VIEW a future activity via the FAY screen and pressing Continue
• on the Future Activity Details (FAY) screen, expand the Actions section
• enter a new date in the Action Date: field
• press Continue