Financial hardship 277-04360000

Child Support customers can lodge a financial hardship application where:

• they have a debt, and
• at the time collection action is being considered:
• the customer is seeking to repay the debt via an ongoing payment arrangement, including Employer Withholding with Arrears (EWA) arrangements, or
• Child Support are seeking to intercept funds (for example, tax refund intercept payments (TRIP) and s72A garnishee action)

A financial hardship application is a priority work item and must be finalised within 48 hours.

For tax refund intercepts, consider collection action when the tax refund is:

• available to Child Support, or
• expected to shortly become available to Child Support

Consider applying a special recovery condition if a tax return has not been lodged at the time the customer wishes to make a hardship claim.

If a customer is seeking a concession to the amount being deducted from their Income Support Payment.

Hardship applications will not be considered and refunds cannot occur once the amount is applied to a customer’s debt and can be viewed on the other party’s record, check the Payer Account Summary Window or the Payee Account Summary window.

A customer is considered to be in financial hardship if they can show that:

• their necessary living expenses exceed their income, or
• they have other necessary expenses to pay outside of these living expenses

Necessary expenses include, but are not limited to:

• food
• clothing
• accommodation
• utilities, and
• education costs for children

Note: a person is not considered to be in financial hardship if paying their debt merely limits social activities, entertainment, discretionary spending or access to goods or services of a better nature or standard

Customers experiencing financial hardship may benefit from referral to:

• a financial counselling service, or
• information/tools to manage money on the Services Australia website

Service Officers:

• obtain all the relevant information from the customer
• make a recommendation for the hardship application
• pend a refund for Service Support Officer (SSO) approval
• advise the customer of the outcome and their rights

Service Support Officers (SSO):

• provide advice in the event of complex issues
• apportion funds to be released and retained
• application or removal of a hold credit
• approval of pended refunds

APS 6:

• accept or refuse the hardship application