Liable parents with child support debt

There are a few reasons a payment from a liable parent to a receiving carer may be overdue. It may be because:

• the payment was late or not made at all
• the assessment changed
• there was a change in your details and we were not told.

If you are the liable parent, you'll need to sort out any child support debt as soon as possible. If you cannot pay in full, let us know how much you can pay. You can either send us a message in your myIR account or call us to make an arrangement.

If you do not contact us, we may take action to collect the overdue amounts.

Update my child support details

Child support - contact us

Late payment penalties

If your child support is not paid in full and on time, penalties are charged on the outstanding amount. Late payment penalties are charged on all overdue child support payments.

From 1 November, penalties are charged at:

• 2% of the unpaid child support, the day after the due date
• 8% of the unpaid child support 28 days after the due date.

Grace period

There is a 60-day grace period during which we do not charge any late payment penalties. The grace period applies when:

• you are first made liable to pay child support
• you start to pay child support after a period of being a receiving carer
• you are assessed to pay child support again after a period of being out of child support.

The grace period of 60-days starts on your first due date. This is to give you time to organise your payments. Although we will not charge penalties in this period, we will still take action to collect any missed payments.

Ongoing monthly late payment penalties

From 1 April 2021, we stopped charging the ongoing monthly late payment penalties to overdue child support. Child support you owe from before this date may have had these penalties applied.

We may be able to reduce or remove the penalties if you pay the overdue child support or set up a payment plan. Contact us to find out how we can help with penalties.

Setting up a payment plan

If you cannot pay all your overdue child support at once, payment plans can make things easier. I If you are paying your child support by deductions from your income, contact us to work out a payment plan and we will include this as a deduction from your income. If you do not contact us, we may increase your deductions to cover the debt.

If you are making your payments yourself and you fall behind, you can set up a payment plan by calling us or letting us know how much you can repay by completing a Manual payer schedule in myIR.

Set up a child support payment plan

Collecting overdue child support

If you do not arrange to pay your debt, we may deduct your child support from:

• salary or wages - up to 40% of your net income
• benefit payments
• ACC payments
• bank accounts - the available balance on each account
• any other money that may be payable to you, for example, a trust account or superannuation payout.

If you have a tax refund owing, we'll use this to pay your child support debt, even if you have a payment plan with us.

If you live in Australia, we may request Services Australia collect payments on our behalf. If you live in a country that has joined the 2007 Child Support Convention, we may ask an overseas authority to collect payments on our behalf. We can also take legal action against you, such as restricting overseas travel.

We'll always try to agree on a payment plan with you before taking any legal action.

Keeping your child support up to date

If you pay child support, you must:

• keep your contact details with us up to date
• tell us about any changes to your income or care arrangements as soon as you can
• keep up with payments
• sort any overdue payments as soon as possible
• let us know if your payment plan is not working.

Update my child support details

Child support - contact us