Child support

Child support from Inland Revenue

For most people, child support payments from Inland Revenue are counted as income. You need to tell us about them as they may affect your payments.

If you're a sole parent on a benefit, or get Unsupported Child's Benefit (UCB), there are different rules for what's counted as income.

Sole parent on a benefit, or get Unsupported Child's Benefit

You must apply for IR to assess and administer your child support payments. IR do this using a formula assessment.

The Government keeps the amount of child support that's equal to your benefit payment, and IR passes on any excess amount to you. For example, your benefit payment is $300. Your child support payment is $350. The Government keeps $300 and IR passes on $50 to you.

The excess amount you get is only counted as income for these payments:

• Temporary Additional Support
• Special Benefit
• Childcare Subsidy
• OSCAR Subsidy.

The excess amount is not counted as income for your benefit payment.

This means you only need to tell us about your child support payments if:

• you get an excess amount from IR, and
• you get one of the payments listed above.

How to tell us

The easiest way to tell us about your child support payments is online, using MyMSD.

Once you've logged in to MyMSD, select 'Declare wages' and then 'Change other income'.

If there's already child support payments recorded in MyMSD, they'll show on the home screen. You can change them from there.

The amount you declare will continue every week until you let us know it has stopped or changed. If your payment amount changes and you don't tell us, you could get into debt.

Information you need to tell us

You need to tell us:

• how much the payment is before tax
• when you're paid
• how often you get this payment.

Log in to MyMSD

If you can't use MyMSD, you can call us