AS v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (CSM)
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Judge Rowland |
| Judgment Date | 24 September 2018 |
| Neutral Citation | [2018] UKUT 315 (AAC) |
| Subject Matter | Child support,Child support - variation/departure directions: diversion of income,Rowland,M |
| Court | Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) |
| Published date | 12 October 2018 |
| Date | 24 September 2018 |
AS v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (CSM) [2018] UKUT 315 (AAC)
CCS/706/2017
1
IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL Case No. CCS/706/2017
ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS CHAMBER
Before Upper Tribunal Judge Rowland
Decision: The father’s appeal is dismissed. Although the First-tier Tribunal erred in
law, the error did not affect the substance of the decision that it made and therefore
its decision is not set aside.
REASONS FOR DECISION
1. This is an appeal, brought with my permission by the father of two qualifying
children, against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 10 November 2016,
whereby it determined his appeal against various decisions of the Secretary of State,
including a decision which, as revised on 4 February 2014, was to the effect that he
was liable to pay child support maintenance to the children’s mother, his ex-wife, at
the rate of £234 per week from 5 June 2011 and £199 per week from 18 November
2012. The First-tier Tribunal said that it had dismissed the father’s appeal, but in fact
it allowed it to a very small extent although it rejected the father’s central argument.
That argument related only to assessments from 1 May 2012 and it was only in
respect of that part of the First-tier Tribunal’s decision that I gave permission to
appeal. The First-tier Tribunal found that he was liable to pay £230 a week from 1
May 2012 to 16 November 2012, £193 per week from 17 November 2012 to 30 April
2013 and £183 per week from 1 May 2013 to 30 April 2014. (The amount of the
father’s child support maintenance is usually assessed annually from 1 May, but
there was a reduction from 17 November 2012 because his second wife bore him a
child then.)
2. There have been previous disputes between the parents about the
assessment of child support maintenance and part of the background to the present
case is a decision I gave on file CCS/2414/2011 on 21 June 2013. The father is a
businessman and had been the sole shareholder in a particular company that he ran
and I decided in relation to the periods before me that, as the First-tier Tribunal put it,
“dividends received by [him] which cannot be brought into account under the base
formula should be the subject of a variation and included as income not hitherto
brought into account”. Unsurprisingly, the First-tier Tribunal reached the same
conclusion in relation to the later periods that were before it and that general
approach has not been challenged.
3. However, the father claimed to have transferred 40% of the shares in the
relevant company to his second wife and accordingly argued that only 60% of the
dividends should be treated as his income from 1 May 2012. He produced part of a
document (doc 284) upon which his wife was shown holding 40 of the 100 shares.
The date of the document has been taken as being 2 April 2012 and, as the father
had previously been the sole shareholder, it implied a transfer of shares to his wife
during the preceding year.
4. His evidence, as recorded in the record of proceedings (which I accept is not a
verbatim record), was to the effect that his wife had been made redundant in about
2012, or it could have been in 2010. He suggested to her that she should join him in
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DT v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (CSM)
...assessment. The real question is whether he did so “unreasonably”. 40. In AS v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (CSM) [2018] UKUT 315 (AAC), I considered the meaning of that word in the predecessor of regulation 71, which was regulation 19(4) of the Child Support (Variations) Regula......