The poison chalice of doing overtime at work in terms of income tax and child support
I've never tried to get out of paying child support or pay less than I should, but the incentive to work overtime is basically a very poison one.
At tax time the tax office (equiv of IRS in USA) calculates any refund owed and then child support gets re-assessed and doesn't get re-assessed for another year. I have to have my income drop by 15 pct to get an out-of-sequence re-assessment triggered.
Working lots of overtime to make lots of extra money causes two things - pushes income into a higher tax bracket and results in child support deductions being increased.
I get no government assistance for parenting my 8 y/o daughter who stays with me 5 nights out of every 14. Her mum earns about 1/3 less than me (no issue with that), and gets government parenting assistance, and gets child support deductions out of my pay. Fair? To some degree yes.
As a hard-working single dad the incentive of working overtime to make more income is very dis-incentivised by the structure of the financial systems of government. Sad but true.
Lucky for her mum she was able pay off her house in 10 years (2016) so she has no mortgage to pay. I was was able to buy in 2023 (by myself) and I'm really proud that I could do it although I will be paying it off past when I retire from my job (hopefully next 10 to 15 yrs).
At tax time the tax office (equiv of IRS in USA) calculates any refund owed and then child support gets re-assessed and doesn't get re-assessed for another year. I have to have my income drop by 15 pct to get an out-of-sequence re-assessment triggered.
Working lots of overtime to make lots of extra money causes two things - pushes income into a higher tax bracket and results in child support deductions being increased.
I get no government assistance for parenting my 8 y/o daughter who stays with me 5 nights out of every 14. Her mum earns about 1/3 less than me (no issue with that), and gets government parenting assistance, and gets child support deductions out of my pay. Fair? To some degree yes.
As a hard-working single dad the incentive of working overtime to make more income is very dis-incentivised by the structure of the financial systems of government. Sad but true.
Lucky for her mum she was able pay off her house in 10 years (2016) so she has no mortgage to pay. I was was able to buy in 2023 (by myself) and I'm really proud that I could do it although I will be paying it off past when I retire from my job (hopefully next 10 to 15 yrs).
