[IN CONFIDENCE RELEASE EXTERNAL]
17 November 2020
Anatoly Kern
[FYI request #14007 email]
Dear Mr Kern
Thank you for your further request made under the Official Information Act 1982, received
on 20 October 2020. You requested:
Based on previously released information the Child Support business retains
~$180M of penalties every year as "retained by the Crown to help offset the cost
of benefits” (…) I am really interested in what specifically is funded by this money
taken away from and at the cost of broken families. Whose benefits are funded by
it? Is it considered as a general government income, supporting police, courts,
prisons, military and etc?
Benefits and child support payments
Benefits, for child support purposes and where they have been referred to in the
information released to you previously, are financial assistance payments made by Work
and Income (part of the Ministry of Social Development) to sole parents.
When a receiving carer gets a benefit, child support payments from the liable parent are
retained by the government to pay for the benefit. If the child support received from the
liable parent is more than the net benefit paid, the excess amount is passed on to the
receiving carer.
As mentioned on page 11 of our 2019
Annual Report, we collected $471 million from more
than 164,000 parents who pay child support, and distributed $290 million to receiving
carers. The balance was retained by the government to offset the cost of sole parent
benefits.
Sole parent benefits Inland Revenue pays child support to the Crown when the following benefits are paid at a
sole parent rate:
•
Emergency Maintenance Allowance
•
Jobseeker Support
•
Jobseeker Support – Overseas
•
Jobseeker support student hardship
(up to 29th February 2016. From 1 March
2016, this benefit ceased to be classed as a sole parent benefit.)
•
Sole Parent Support
•
Sole Parent Support – Overseas
•
Supported Living Payment – Sickness
•
Supported Living Payment – Overseas
•
Unsupported Child’s Benefit
•
Young Parent Payment.
1
Ref: 21OIA1262
[IN CONFIDENCE RELEASE EXTERNAL]
Thank you for your request. I trust that this further information is of assistance to you.
Yours sincerely
Sue Gillies
Customer Segment Lead—Families
2
Ref: 21OIA1262