The Child Support Act has been amended to improve fairness and reduce complexity of the scheme. It prevents penalties from mounting up and deterring parents from meeting their obligations. There are about 185,000 qualifying children in New Zealand who will benefit from this.
The changes came into effect on April 1st 2021.
Key Changes:
- Fairer and more effective penalty rules
- Compulsory deductions of financial support from source deduction payments made by an employer for newly liable parents
- A fairer definition of “income” used for child support purposes
- A four-year time bar on the reassessment of child support
More information can be found here
https://media.ird.govt.nz/articles/law-simplifies-and-encourages-child-support/
