Child support is a topic that often leads to arguments and disputes. In principle, most people are willing to support their children. However, there are often smouldering conflicts between the parents, which lead to one of them having the impression, that they are merely financing the luxury life of the other and the other fearing that they are not receiving enough maintenance. However, there are also myths and misunderstandings surrounding the topic. Some of them will be discussed here:
Who has to pay child maintenance?
Parents must generally support their children until the children are able to support themselves. The ability to support themselves has nothing to do with coming of age. Child maintenance therefore does not automatically stop when the child turns 18. For example, if a child is studying, they are usually not yet able to support themselves during their studies. If the parents do not live together, the parent who mainly looks after the child in their household is paying the child support “in kind” by looking after the child. The other parent, who does not primarily live with the child, owes financial maintenance and must transfer the maintenance or the so-called “alimony” for underage children to the parent who primarily cares for the child. When the child is 18, the child entitled to maintenance can receive the maintenance themselves. T
he maintenance payer is not entitled to receive proof of what happens to the money. This means that no receipts have to be shown what the money is spent on. From time to time, people who have to pay child maintenance would like to set up a savings account to which they transfer the child maintenance, to which only the child should have access later. However, this is not legally permissible. Normally, if one parent is the main carer, it is also not relevant what the main carer earns. In summary, the parent who does not live in the same household as the children must pay child maintenance.
How much child maintenance must be paid?
The amount of child maintenance depends, on the one hand, on the child’s needs and, on the other, on the financial ability of the person who has to pay child maintenance. There are certain percentages that are used when calculating child maintenance. Depending on the age of the child, between 16% and 22% of the net monthly income of the person paying maintenance is owed. The older the child, the higher the percentage. For children aged 0-6, 16% of child maintenance must be paid, for children aged 15 and over, for example, 22%. However, if the person liable to pay maintenance has more children or (ex-)spouses to support, the maintenance is reduced slightly.
It is also the case that if too little child maintenance is paid, this can also be increased retroactively. Depending on the custody situation, an increase can be applied for with retroactive effect for several years. This can sometimes lead to high back maintenance payments. However, there is also a cap on child maintenance in Austria in the form of the so-called luxury limit. The aim is to avoid overpayment of maintenance that does not make educational sense. This luxury limit is based on the current standard requirement rates (Austrian ARGE for youth welfare) and is, for example, EUR 680 for a 4-year-old child and EUR 1325 for a 12-year-old child.
Who has to buy the clothes and pay for the kindergarten?
In principle, the parent with primary care must pay the costs for kindergarten or after-school care. The main caring parent must also pay for the child’s clothing and general living expenses. In return, the other parent, who is not the main carer, pays maintenance. In principle, the parent with primary care must provide the child with sufficient equipment, e.g. a suitable set of clothes and shoes for visitation with the other parent. However, the clothing must also be treated with care and must not disappear or be returned damaged. It will be different with the change of clothes if the parents share care equally and share all the costs for the child anyway. In most cases, each parent will then have clothes for the times when they are looking after the child.
What does contact have to do with child maintenance?
In Austria, the right of contact is linked to child maintenance. To put it simply: the more contact, the less child maintenance. As you can imagine, this rule does not necessarily help to calm highly contentious proceedings concerning the children. If the person who does not live with the child has a “normal” right of contact of around 80 days per year (every second weekend from Friday to Sunday plus four weeks’ vacation per year), the right of contact has no effect on child maintenance. If the person with the right of contact has (far) less contact, no more child maintenance has to be paid. However, if the right of contact exceeds 80 days, child maintenance is reduced.
A percentage reduction (at least 10 percent per day) is granted for each additional day/night of contact. However, if the parents care for the children almost equally in terms of time, no more financial maintenance is owed if the costs for the children are also shared equally. This can be different if the parents’ incomes are very different, in which case so-called “residual maintenance” may be owed by the higher earning parent. However, it is also important to know that individual hours of stay, e.g. in the afternoon, are not taken into account when calculating maintenance. A contact weekend from Friday to Sunday is generally counted as 2 days.
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