Heffernan and Heffernan (Child support)
[2025] ARTA 2278
•27 August 2025
Heffernan and Heffernan (Child support) [2025] ARTA 2278 (27 August 2025)
Applicant/s: Mr Heffernan
Respondent: Child Support Registrar
Other Parties: Ms Heffernan
Tribunal Number: 2025/BC029819
Tribunal:Member S Letch
Place:Brisbane
Date:27 August 2025
Decision:The Tribunal affirms the decision under review.
CATCHWORDS
CHILD SUPPORT – non-agency payments – paid directly into mother’s bank account with reference to child support – mutual intent – both parents unaware of child support assessment and enforceable liability accruing – payments could not have been viewed as satisfaction of liability – children now turned 18 – decision under review affirmed
Names used in all published decisions are pseudonyms. Any references appearing in square brackets indicate that information has been omitted from this decision and replaced with generic information pursuant to subsection 16(2AB) of the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988.
Statement of Reasons
This matter concerns a decision by Child Support to refuse to credit “non-agency payments” (NAPs) claimed by Mr Heffernan.
It is convenient by way of background to set out some extracts from the objections officer’s decisions dated 16 April 2025:
SUMMARY OF OBJECTION DECISION
The outcome of the objection is it has been disallowed.
We have made the decision to refuse to accept the payments for $24,994.50 made by Mr Heffernan to Ms Heffernan as non-agency payments.
The effect of the objection decision is: no change to the assessment.
DECISION UNDER REVIEW
The decision made on 3 January 2024 to refuse to accept several payments totalling $24,994.50 made by Mr Heffernan to Ms Heffernan as non-agency payments due to lack of mutual intent.
Mr Heffernan objected to the decision on the grounds he had made several payments directly to Ms Heffernan’s account. He stated the amounts varied depending on his financial circumstances and the exchange rate.…
REASONS FOR THE DECISION
We can credit a non-agency payment to a child support debt or carer debt if the payer and the payee both intended when the payment was made that it was a payment towards the 'enforceable maintenance liability' or the 'carer liability' except if the liability is an agency reimbursement liability.
Where the parents disagree, we will seek evidence from both parents and decide on the basis of that evidence whether the relevant intention existed when the payment was made.
We can credit payments if the payment was made towards an enforceable maintenance liability or a carer liability. This includes non-agency payments made for arrears on ended cases.
Mr Heffernan objected to the decision to refuse to accept payments totalling $24,994.50 made to Ms Heffernan’s account as non-agency payments. He stated both parties had agreed these payments would be accepted in lieu of child support. Mr Heffernan stated the payments varied based on his circumstances and the exchange rate. However, the evidence provided by him was in a different language and hence could not support his objection.
Ms Heffernan stated she would not accept these payments in lieu of child support as they were for Christmas and birthday presents.
We are unable to process these payments as non-agency payments due to lack of mutual intention between both parties.
Therefore, we have made the decision to refuse to accept the payments for $24,994.50 made by Mr Heffernan to Ms Heffernan as non-agency payments.
The objection is disallowed.
…
In his written application to the Tribunal, Mr Heffernan advised:
I believe the decision is incorrect, as I do not agree with the conclusion that my child support payments to Ms Heffernan were not accepted as non-agency payments. As far as I understand, the decision was based solely on Ms Heffernan's statement (without any supporting evidence) that the payments were made as contributions toward Christmas and birthday presents. This disregards the documentation I provided, which supports the opposite.
Ms Heffernan also claims there was no mutual agreement regarding child support payments.
However, the only way I could have obtained her bank account details was directly from her, which implies some level of agreement.My intention was to support my children. Every payment I made to Ms Heffernan clearly includes the reference "Child support." Most of these payments were made throughout the year (not just around Christmas or in January) and the total amount paid ($24,994.50) far exceeds what we would typically give as gifts to our children.
Ms Heffernan has not provided any evidence to the Child Support Agency regarding these payments. On the other hand, I submitted original bank payment confirmations (initially in [Language]) and, at the request of a Child Support Officer named [Ms A], I provided English translations for all payments made to Ms Heffernan between 2013 and 2022. These translations were sent on 1st of April, 2025, and their receipt was confirmed by a Customer Service Officer over the phone. However, these documents were not considered during the decision-making process and were not listed as evidence in the Objection Decision.
Mr Heffernan and Ms Heffernan participated in the hearing by conference telephone.
Importantly, Mr Heffernan told the Tribunal that when he left Australia, he was not aware that there was an Australian child support assessment in place. Similarly, Ms Heffernan told the Tribunal that she was not aware that there was such an assessment in place; she had moved multiple times and did not receive any correspondence. Mr Heffernan only discovered he had a child support liability after he returned to Australia in 2022. The child support case ended in early 2022 when the children turned 18 years of age.
Application of the law
It is important to observe that the legislative test to be applied here is not one of general fairness or the exercise of some other broad discretion; the requirements to credit a non‑agency payment are very carefully prescribed.
Part V of the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988 (the Act) provides for NAPs to be credited where, amongst other things, both the payer and payee intended for payments to be in partial or complete satisfaction of a child support liability. Section 71 of the Act provides as follows:[1]
[1] No other provisions including section 71C (“prescribed non-agency payments”) are relevant to this matter.
71 Direct payments to payee
(1) Subject to section 71D, if:
(a) either:
(i) the payee of an enforceable maintenance liability receives from the payer an amount intended by both the payer and the payee to be paid in complete or partial satisfaction of an amount payable under the liability in relation to the child support enforcement period; or
(ii) the payee of a carer liability receives from the payer an amount intended by both the payer and the payee to be paid in complete or partial satisfaction of an amount payable under the liability; and
(b) the payer or the payee applies to the Registrar to have the amount received by the payee treated as having been paid to the Registrar;
the Registrar must, despite sections 30 and 69B, credit the amount received by the payee against the amount payable under the liability.
(2) An application must be made in the manner specified by the Registrar.
Note: Section 16A provides for the Registrar to specify the manner in which an application may be made.
(3) This section does not apply to an enforceable maintenance liability of a kind referred to in paragraph 18A(3)(a).
Here, I find Mr Heffernan genuinely intended the payments he made over the years from overseas were “child support” in a general sense, supported by the description he attached to the transfers; however, given he had no knowledge of the enforceable child support assessment and his accruing liability, he could not have formed an intention that the amounts he paid were paid in complete or partial satisfaction of an amount payable under the liability in relation to the child support enforcement period. Of relevance is his intention at the time the payments were made, not his intention after the fact when he discovered he had been accruing an enforceable child support liability.
For completeness, I accept Ms Heffernan had no knowledge of the ongoing assessment; she, too, could not have formed a view the payments she was receiving were in complete or partial satisfaction of a liability she did not know existed.
Accordingly, the payments made by Mr Heffernan do not meet the requirements of section 71 of the Act. None of the payments he has claimed can be credited as non-agency payments.
As this is the same conclusion as the objections officer, the decision under review will be affirmed.
DECISION
The Tribunal affirms the decision under review.
| Date of hearing: | Wednesday 20 August 2025 |
| Representative for the Applicant: | Self-represented |
| Representative for the Other party: | Self-represented |
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