Entitlement Method 277-51080050

It is used to estimate annual maintenance income during the financial year for a Family Tax Benefit (FTB) instalment customer collecting child support:

• privately, or
• via Child Support where the customer has not asked for the Disbursement Method to be used, or under the Modified Entitlement Method comparison the Entitlement Method results in a higher annual amount than the Disbursement Method

Centrelink assumes customers receive their full child support entitlement as advised by Child Support via a weekly entitlement load or as advised by the customer as actual private maintenance income.

The Child Support entitlement amount is displayed on the Maintenance - Group Annual Entitlement (MNGE) screen.

If entitlement data is not displayed, this could be due to a mismatch resulting from the mutual customer matching process. If matching has been successful, Service Officers can code the Child Support Data Refresh (MNRF) screen to ask Child Support to re-send data. See Transfer of information between Centrelink and Child Support

From 1 July, the current entitlement amount is used as the annual maintenance income.

If child support entitlement varies, annual maintenance income is recalculated and, under the Entitlement Method, includes:

• each entitlement amount (or actual private maintenance income amount) apportioned for the period it applies: entitlement x number of days/ 365
• capitalised maintenance income

Details of the annual maintenance income assessment can be viewed from the MIT Explanation Summary (MNEX) screen.

See the Resources page for examples.

The date of effect of a change in maintenance income on ongoing FTB Part A is no earlier than date paid to plus one day. See Modified Entitlement Method

If FTB is granted for a past period in the current financial year, all changes in the customer's child support entitlement will be taken into account in working out the annual maintenance income that applies over the period.

For details of how maintenance income is calculated during FTB reconciliation, see Maintenance reconciliation.