Family Tax Benefit (FTB) customer receives spousal maintenance 277-51080020

This document outlines how spousal maintenance, which may be included as maintenance income under the Maintenance Income Test (MIT), may affect the rate of Family Tax Benefit (FTB) Part A. Spousal maintenance is paid to support a separated partner.

Maintenance income (including spousal maintenance)

Spousal (partner) maintenance is a payment or benefit that is received by the individual for their own maintenance and is provided by the individual's former partner.

Maintenance income, including spousal maintenance, is not ordinary income for income support payments (assets transferred as spousal maintenance are not exempt assets).

Like child support, spousal maintenance can be regular payments, non-cash benefits and capitalised maintenance it must be specifically intended as maintenance to be treated as maintenance income.

At the moment there is no way to record spousal maintenance separately from child support. It must be included as child support income from the relevant paying parent.

If the customer is collecting child support and spousal maintenance from the same payer, the total amount received will be used in the Maintenance Income Test (MIT). If spousal maintenance is received from a person who is not liable to pay child support, this is not coded on the customer's record.

Private collection

If the customer collects spousal maintenance privately (directly from the paying parent), they need to advise Services Australia so that the amount they collect can be recorded as private maintenance income. If the customer has a Child Support assessment, the entitlement amount reported will not include spousal maintenance unless the customer has registered an Agreement or Court Order with Child Support, electing to privately collect their entitlement.

The Process page contains information on recording this spousal maintenance.

Child Support collects

If Child Support collects child support payments and spousal maintenance for the customer, there is no need to record spousal maintenance as private maintenance income. Spousal maintenance is included in disbursement data sent by Child Support and is included in the Maintenance Income Test.

Lump sum FTB

For a lump sum FTB claim, the customer is asked to report spousal maintenance received.

Customer not receiving FTB

If a customer is not receiving FTB, information received about spousal maintenance should only be recorded in a DOC. There is no coding required as spousal maintenance is not classed as ordinary income.