Non-cash maintenance income assessment for Family Tax Benefit (FTB) 277-51100000

There is a wide range of non-cash benefits that can be assessed as maintenance income. The paying parent can purchase items or pay expenses that would benefit the child, directly or indirectly, for example, spousal maintenance. Not all non-cash benefits received can be assessed as maintenance income.

Things to consider before assessing or recording the value of non-cash benefit as maintenance income:

• Is it exempt maintenance income?
• Does it actually benefit the child or person, improving their lives in some way?
• Is there a need to assess or record the maintenance income?

Maintenance over $1,500 value received as a one-off lump sum or as a transfer of an asset is treated separately. This is known as capitalised maintenance.

Accommodation expenses that may count as child support are:

• mortgage payments
• rent
• free (or less than market rental value) accommodation
• board
• lodging

Staff must assess accommodation given as child support or spousal maintenance as part of a property as Capitalised maintenance.

Establishing value

Things to consider when working out the value to the receiving parent:

• Who gives the help? It must be a person liable to pay child support or spousal maintenance
• Who owns the accommodation? Unless there is a formal property settlement, a property owned by either parent at separation is taken to be jointly owned (50% each)
• Who lives in the accommodation? If a customer is not living in the accommodation being paid for or subsidised, staff must not assess it as child support, unless it is stated as such in:
• a court order, or
• an agreement registered with a court or Child Support
  If the paying parent also lives in the house, staff must not assess the first 50% of the full amount payable

Staff can assess motor vehicle expenses as child support if:

• the vehicle is available for the payee to use, and
• the expenses are:
• running costs (petrol, registration, tyres, minor repairs)
• costs of providing the vehicle as an asset for the payee (for example, loan repayments, insurance premiums, modifications), but only if the vehicle is owned or jointly owned by the payee

If the payer and payee share ownership or use of the vehicle, staff can only assess the expenses that relate to the payee's share or use.

If ownership of the vehicle has been transferred to the payee, staff may assess as capitalised maintenance depending on the value.

Some examples of health expenses that staff can assess as child support are:

• health insurance premiums
• the cost of prescriptions and medical equipment
• the cost of medical treatment
• ambulance transport costs, and
• treatment by health professionals

For health insurance premiums:

• staff can only assess the amount paid to insure the payee and child/ren
• the 30% government rebate available on private health insurance premiums must be taken off the full cost. (Premiums are quoted with the rebate already taken off)

For medical expenses, staff must not assess any amount the payer can claim back from Medicare or from private health insurance.

Some maintenance income is not assessable as it is exempt maintenance income.

The 3 things to consider when assessing loan repayments as maintenance income are:

• is the payment from a person liable to pay child support or spousal maintenance
• is the customer or child able to use the asset (or credit card)
• whose name is the loan

Paying off a debt for the customer is not child support unless the customer is able to use the asset (or credit card).

Joint loans and ownership

If parents have a joint loan for an asset, the asset is taken to be jointly owned unless a property settlement is finalised. If the asset is jointly owned, staff can only assess 50% of any loan repayments by the payer as child support.

Staff may assess income from a trust as maintenance income. This can affect the rate of Family Tax Benefit (FTB) Part A.

Income from a trust can be maintenance income of a person if:

• they get it as child support or as spousal maintenance from a person liable to pay child support or spousal maintenance, and
• it is actually received. Only beneficiaries can get income from a trust. Sometimes the discretion to release the payments made into a trust is not exercised

Any income from the trust of a deceased parent is not assessable as maintenance income. Staff may need to assess it as ordinary income of the child or person.

Centrelink may ask for a copy of the Trust Deed and the financial statements of the trust to assess income from the trust.

Some maintenance income is not assessable as it is exempt maintenance income.

Centrelink staff no longer manually assess or code Child Support Agreements with a start date of 1 July 2008 or later. Child Support assess these.

For agreements with a start date before 1 July 2008, staff must manually record any non-cash maintenance on the Centrelink system for the period up to and including 30 June 2008.

Centrelink maintains the non-cash maintenance previously coded on the Centrelink system for agreements that were in place before 1 July 2008:

• that have been accepted by Child Support, and
• transitioned under the Child Support Scheme Reforms from 1 July 2008