How we recover child support debts

There are different ways we can collect overdue child support debt. These include:

• deducting from payments you get
• using your tax refund
• collecting through other organisations
• deducting from your wages or bank accounts
• redirecting refunds.

Tax refunds

If you pay or get child support you must lodge either:

• a tax return
• a non-lodgement advice.

Read about if you need to lodge a tax return on the ATO website.

We may use a tax refund to pay any outstanding child support debts. This may still happen if you have a payment arrangement in place.

If this would cause you hardship, call us on the Child Support enquiry line. Do this before you lodge your tax return.

Redirection of refunds

If you pay too much child support, you may be owed money from the receiving parent. This is an overpayment.

If you have an existing child support debt, the amount you overpaid will be used for the debt first. After your child support debt is paid, we’ll refund any money left over to you.

Overseas travel

We can stop a paying parent from leaving Australia when all the following apply to their situation:

• they plan to travel overseas
• they have an overdue amount
• they don’t come to a suitable arrangement to pay the overdue amount.

We do this with a Departure Prohibition Order.

This prevents the paying parent from leaving Australia until they’re either:

• pay the overdue amount
• agree to a suitable payment arrangement.

We don’t need a court order to prevent a paying parent from leaving Australia.

We encourage people to let us know if they have information that may help us collect unpaid amounts. For example, if you know a parent with overdue amounts who plans to travel outside Australia.

Legal action

We can take legal action to collect any outstanding amounts. We only do this if other collection methods don’t work. We’ll do this if there’s an asset or income stream in the paying person’s name.

We may prosecute for serious actions or omissions involving criminal behaviour.