Completing child support forms with Centrelink 277-51140000

A customer must contact Child Support directly via online or phone to:

• apply for a child support assessment
• advise of a change in circumstances that could affect their child support arrangements

Direct contact lets Child Support Officers check all necessary details and give customers the right advice about child support options.

Refer the customer to Child Support. For contact details, see Child Support.

Many customers who claim child support are Centrelink customers.

There are factors which can affect a customer’s rate of Family Tax Benefit (FTB) Part A. These can include, a customer’s:

• effort to receive child support
• amount received in child support

Centrelink:

• delivers services on behalf of Child Support
• has a duty to make sure Child Support customers:
• have the right details captured about child support or maintenance
• get the right advice about how to complete forms to claim Child Support
• accepts Child Support forms. These are sent to Child Support for processing. Family assistance customers may need to lodge forms with Centrelink to show they are taking reasonable action to receive child support

Customers use form:

• CS4649 to declare they are the parent of the children named in an application for child support
• CS4648 to declare they and the other person named in their child support application are named as parents of the child/ren in a register of births

The Resources page contains a link to these forms

Authorised witness

A customer must complete (and sign) CS4649 or CS4648 form in the presence of an authorised witness. The witness must:

• include their details on the form, including:
• signature
• full name
• qualification (to be a witness)
• email
• daytime phone number
• check the identity of the person making the declaration. A witness does not need to sight a birth certificate or another form of evidence before signing
• check to the extent possible, that the person doing the form is competent to make the declaration
• remind the person that:
• they will be claiming statements in the declaration (and any attachments) are true
• there are penalties for making false statements
• check to make sure the form does not contain any blank fields

For details about Commonwealth statutory declarations, see the Attorney-General website.

When a customer ends an assessment, they are asking Child Support to stop calculating how much child support the paying parent must pay them.

To end an assessment, a customer must:

• call Child Support, or
• complete Ending a child support assessment (CS1671) form

If a customer wants to change from Child Support collection to private collection but still wants Child Support to calculate their child support entitlement, the customer:

• must not use CS1671 form
• must contact Child Support. Refer the customer to Child Support

By ending an assessment, the paying parent no longer has a requirement under child support legislation to pay child support from a certain date. Only customers with a current child support assessment for a stage two child can end an assessment.

Customers receiving more than the base rate of Family Tax Benefit (FTB) Part A for the child (including customers who would receive more than base rate but for a payment choice) may voluntarily end a child support assessment in some cases.

If the customer elects to discharge their child support arrears, tell the customer they have effectively elected to collect privately any arrears of child support owing to them. Staff must record this as child support income. The discharged arrears amount is not included in the entitlement data from Child Support therefore the discharged amount will need to be added to the Child Support assessed amount and manually coded as the actual amount.

The customer must sign and date the form after checking it and reading the declaration.

Child Support can end an assessment without a request from the payee if a child support terminating event happens, for example, the child leaves their care or the child or the payer dies.