To: UK Government
Make Maintenance Payments Means Tested
Dear Sir/Madam
I'm a Father who has separated from my child's maternal mother, I work full time as I have to pay for the roof over my head, the car to take me to work and obviously the usual household bills. This has impacted the amount of time I now get to spend with my child, I'm far from a stay away Father who wants nothing to do with their child, I'm a very proud and doting Farher who is immensely pained at not seeing their child as often as I once did. I believe stay away parents, be they Mother or Father should be penalised fiscally as the cost of raising a child is astronomical. My issue is when the receiving parent has higher income than the paying parent, I have never not provided for my child at my home, however I now have to provide at my home and his mother's home. When I first got the demand for the child support claim I was stumped, but I thought as with most benefit claims this would be a percentage of my wage after my living costs, as aforementioned household bills etc. I was stumped further when I found that this wasn't to be the case, and that I had to pay 10% of my wage regardless of how my finances may suffer from this. How is this a fair system? I'm not petitioning to pay no maintenance costs, I'm petitioning for some sort of equality for Fathers and a fairer way of calculating such payments.
I'm a Father who has separated from my child's maternal mother, I work full time as I have to pay for the roof over my head, the car to take me to work and obviously the usual household bills. This has impacted the amount of time I now get to spend with my child, I'm far from a stay away Father who wants nothing to do with their child, I'm a very proud and doting Farher who is immensely pained at not seeing their child as often as I once did. I believe stay away parents, be they Mother or Father should be penalised fiscally as the cost of raising a child is astronomical. My issue is when the receiving parent has higher income than the paying parent, I have never not provided for my child at my home, however I now have to provide at my home and his mother's home. When I first got the demand for the child support claim I was stumped, but I thought as with most benefit claims this would be a percentage of my wage after my living costs, as aforementioned household bills etc. I was stumped further when I found that this wasn't to be the case, and that I had to pay 10% of my wage regardless of how my finances may suffer from this. How is this a fair system? I'm not petitioning to pay no maintenance costs, I'm petitioning for some sort of equality for Fathers and a fairer way of calculating such payments.
Why is this important?
Because the current system is unfair, and there are a lot of Father's who would love to spend more time with their children. We are punished enough by not getting to spend the amount of time we wish with our children, but to then be legally obliged to pay a certain percentage of our earnings without even a request of incoming and outgoings is to me and I'm sure many others an absolute disgrace
