Automated Decision-Making for child support payments
Find out how we use Automated Decision-Making (ADM) for Inland Revenue (IR) child support payments.
For some child support payments, there are some automated processes where our system makes a decision, instead of a person. This will be a decision about how your IR child support income affects the payments you get from us.
The decision will be based on:
- the child support information IR shares with us, and
- the information we already hold about you (e.g. the type of benefit you get).
When we say 'IR child support payments', we mean:
- when you get child support through IR and we treat this as income for your benefit and most other payments you get from us, and
- when child support you have to pay to IR that is formula assessed is counted as an essential cost for your Temporary Additional Support (TAS) payment.
If we make a decision using ADM, we'll make sure you know about it. We'll also let you know what to do if you don't agree with a decision made in this process.
If you want to know when we use ADM in other situations, or about our ADM Standard, go to:
When we use ADM for IR child support payments
We'll use ADM in the following situations when certain requirements are met:
- if you get child support through Inland Revenue, or
- if you have to pay child support to Inland Revenue.
Our staff will not be involved in the decision making, unless:
- there's an exception (e.g. we can't easily match your information with the information we've got from IR), or
- you've told us you've had a change in circumstances.
If there's an exception or you've had a change in circumstances, our staff will manually check how your income affects your payments.
If you get child support through IR
We use ADM for child support payments when:
- they are collected and paid through IR
- you get them paid in your bank account from IR
- they relate to a period on or after 1 July 2023, and
- IR shares your child support payment information with us and we match it with your record.
Our system will then automatically treat your child support as income when working out your benefit rate and most other payments you get from us.
Any income you get could affect your payment from us. This means your payments from us could automatically go up, go down or stop for a while.
How your payment rate changes depends on:
- the amount of child support you get
- what type of benefit you get, and
- your other income.
If there's a public holiday, your payment from us could come through early. This means your child support income will be processed after we pay you. So you may get more money from us then you were meant to, and have a debt.
If you have to pay child support to IR
Child support you have to pay to IR that is formula assessed can be counted as an essential cost for Temporary Additional Support.
If your IR child support is included as an essential cost for your Temporary Additional Support, we will use ADM when:
- you have to pay child support to IR that is formula assessed
- these payments are included as an essential cost for your Temporary Additional Support
- you have given consent to IR sharing your formula assessed child support payments with us
- you're re-applying in MyMSD for Temporary Additional Support because it's due to stop soon, and
- your formula assessed child support payments have not changed.
Our system will automatically check to see if your child support payment has changed.
If your child support payment:
- hasn't changed, our system will continue to process your Temporary Additional Support re-application
- has changed, our staff will review your payment and update your Temporary Additional Support appropriately.
We'll tell you when we use ADM
If you get child support through IR, we'll send you a letter if:
- IR shares your child support information with us, and
- your payments from us change.
The letter will tell you:
- the amount of child support IR shared with us,
- what your average weekly amount of income is, and
- how much your benefit or payment from us will be.
Average weekly amount of income
When we get your child support payment information from IR, we'll treat this as your income for the next month. This means the next 4 or 5 weeks from the date you receive the child support payment. It could be 4 weeks, or 5 weeks, it depends on the number of weeks until you get your next child support payment from IR (as long as the paying parent has paid on time).
We'll take the total amount of child support that IR has told us about and average it out over these 4 or 5 weeks. We do this to get a weekly amount.
You can see your weekly income amount in MyMSD.
If you don't agree with a decision
The Group General Manager Income is accountable for decisions made through ADM for child support payments.
If you don't agree with a decision we've made, you can talk to us and we will review it. We may need to contact IR to confirm your information.