Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Child Support Act 1991

Liability to pay child support under formula assessment - Determining care cost percentages

15: How Commissioner establishes proportions of care

You could also call this:

“How the Commissioner figures out who cares for a child and for how long”

When deciding how much care someone provides for a child, the Commissioner must follow specific rules. They usually look at any care orders or agreements about the child. If these documents say how many nights a child spends with someone, that’s used to work out how much care that person provides.

You can disagree with this if you think the care order or agreement isn’t right, or if you think the number of nights doesn’t show how much care you really provide. You need to give evidence to support your view.

If there’s no care order or agreement, or if the Commissioner agrees that it’s not accurate, they’ll mainly look at how many nights the child spends with each carer.

Sometimes, the number of nights might not show the real amount of care provided. In these cases, the Commissioner will look at how much time each carer is responsible for the child’s daily care.

When working out care percentages, the Commissioner only uses whole numbers. They round up numbers over 50% and round down numbers under 50%. They also treat every year as having 365 days.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

This page was last updated on

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM253546.

Topics:
Family and relationships > Children and parenting
Previous

14: Commissioner to establish proportions of care, or

"The government works out how much time parents spend caring for their child"

Next

16: Determining care cost percentages, or

"How much of a child's care costs each parent is responsible for"

Part 1 Liability to pay child support under formula assessment
Determining care cost percentages

15How Commissioner establishes proportions of care

  1. For the purpose of section 14, the Commissioner must (subject to subsection (3)) rely on the content of any care order or agreement relating to a qualifying child when establishing the proportion of ongoing daily care that a carer provides to the child.

  2. If a care order or agreement specifies the proportion of nights that a child is to spend with a carer, that proportion of nights is taken to be the proportion of ongoing daily care provided to the child by that carer.

  3. A parent or carer of a qualifying child may challenge the application of subsection (1) or (2) by providing evidence of—

  4. why a care order or agreement should not be relied on; or
    1. why the proportion of nights that a child spends with a carer should not be taken to be the proportion of ongoing daily care provided to that child by that carer.

      1. If there is no care order or agreement relating to the child, or if the Commissioner is satisfied, on the basis of evidence provided, that a care order or agreement does not accurately reflect the proportion of ongoing daily care provided by a carer to a child, the Commissioner must establish the proportion of care provided by a carer primarily on the basis of the number of nights that the child spends with the carer.

      2. If the Commissioner is satisfied, on the basis of evidence provided, that the number of nights spent with a carer is not a true reflection of the proportion of care actually provided by a carer to the child, the Commissioner must establish the proportion of care provided on the basis of the amount of time that the carer is the person responsible for the daily care of the child.

      3. When establishing proportions of care, the Commissioner—

      4. must use only whole percentage figures and, for that purpose, must round figures over 50% upwards to the next whole percentage figure, and figures under 50% downwards to the next whole percentage figure; and
        1. must assume that every year has 365 days.

          Notes
          • Section 15: replaced, on , by section 10 of the Child Support Amendment Act 2013 (2013 No 12).