During a divorce, one parent will usually be liable to pay child maintenance to the other, separate from any spousal maintenance which may also be payable.
In an article for The Financial Times, Anna Stanworth discusses that in most cases and where parents and children live in the UK, the CMS will have the jurisdiction to determine the level of child maintenance. The CMS calculation is straightforward and depends primarily on the parent’s income, the number if children and how many nights per week the children stay with them.
"The Child Support Act 1991 limits the maximum income taken into account to £156,000 per annum (gross of tax and national insurance, but net of pension contributions). This means that even if the parent's income is over the threshold, the CMS will still prepare their calculations based on that figure. However, this does not mean that overall child maintenance payments will be wholly capped to this level".
Anna Stanworth
Senior Associate
Read the full article on The Financial Times.
