other than the child, then the interest earned is the child's income.
Children are not eligible for the low-income tax offset against unearned income, such as interest. The rebate can only be offset against excepted income.
5 PAID PARENTAL LEAVE
Eligible working parents of children born or adopted may be entitled to the paid parental leave scheme to help them care for a new baby. The pay is for up to 18 weeks at the national minimum wage (currently $672.60 per week before tax) and is paid by either your employer or the government (where employers do not provide parental leave entitlements). You can claim for paid parental leave up to three months in advance.
To be eligible you must have worked at least 330 hours across 10 of the 13 months prior to the birth of your child, but your annual salary must also be less than $150 000. The work test has been extended so that mothers can count periods of paid parental leave they've taken for earlier births as ‘work'.
Paid parental leave is subject to income tax and may also affect other government benefits such as child support, health care cards and public housing. In contrast, the Newborn Upfront Payment and Supplement is not taxable and not considered income for family assistance or social security purposes. For more information on paid parental leave go to www.australia.gov.au/paidparentalleave.
Since 1 July 2016, parents are prevented from ‘double-dipping' into parental leave, where they have simultaneous access to employer-funded benefits at the same level or more than the government scheme. If the employer-paid leave is less, then they will only receive the difference.
For children born after 1 March 2014, Family Tax Benefit Part A recipients may be entitled to a $532 Newborn Upfront Payment and up to $1595.23 for a Newborn Supplement (reduced to $1064.35 in total for subsequent children), payable via normal fortnightly payments over a three-month period. These payments are not taxable.
6 DAD AND PARTNER PAY
To help partners bond with their new baby, eligible working partners of children born or adopted after 1 January 2013 may be entitled to a single ‘dad and partner pay'. It is a one-off payment of up to two weeks at the national minimum wage (currently $672.60 per week before tax).
To be eligible you must have worked at least 330 hours across 10 of the 13 months prior to the birth of your child, but your annual salary must also be less than $150 000. You can be eligible if you work full time, part time, casually, seasonally, on contract or in a family business. You cannot be working or receiving paid leave during the period of claiming the dad and partner pay.
In addition to dad and partner pay, families may be eligible for other family assistance such as paid parental leave and the Family Tax Benefit.
Claims must be lodged by the partner who is eligible to receive the payment. You can claim the dad and partner pay up to three months in advance or within a year following your child's birth or adoption. Employers are not required to pay this entitlement as it is solely administered and paid by the Department of Human Services.
7 CHILD CARE
Ask the parents of any young child and they will tell you that their biggest expense is child care. If you have a child who is attending child care services approved by, or registered with, the government you may be eligible for the Child Care Benefit (CCB). You can apply for the benefit at the Family Assistance Office. The amount you receive will depend on the type and amount of care that you use, your income, the reason you are using care and the number of children that you have in care.
If you have identified that you were eligible for the CCB in previous financial years, but have not received it, you can lodge a lump-sum claim with the Family Assistance Office. You must do this within two years of the end of the financial year for which you are claiming.
The Child Care Rebate is additional help available to eligible working families to assist with covering the cost of child care. It is a 50 per cent rebate, up to $7500 per child per year per primary claimant, based on the out-of-pocket cost for approved child care after the CCB has been paid. Note that the Child Care Rebate is a different payment from the CCB. To receive the rebate you must first claim the CCB for approved care.
According to the Department of Human Services, you may be eligible to claim the Child Care Rebate if you:
• were eligible for the CCB, even if you received no payment because your income was too high
• passed the work/training/study test
• ensure that your children under seven either meet the Government's immunisation requirements or have an exemption
• used approved child care such as long day care, family day care, in-home care, outside school hours care, vacation care and/or some occasional care services.
Parents can claim up to 50 hours of CCB per child per week dependent on passing a work/training/study test. Once eligible, the rebate is paid weekly or fortnightly by Centrelink based on child care attendance information it receives electronically from your service provider. Even if your child is absent from child care, the CCB and Child Care Rebate can still be paid in some situations. You can receive payments for up to 42 absences per financial year, if you are charged for child care. These absent days can be taken for any reason with no evidence required.
It was announced in the 2016–17 federal budget that the CCB and Child Care Rebate would be abolished on 1 July 2018 and replaced with the Child Care Subsidy (CCS). Up to 100 hours of carev per child per fortnight will be subsidised, dependent on a new work activity test. Families with incomes under $65 710 will receive a CCS of 85 per cent, reducing to 20 per cent for those families with incomes over $340 000 with no subsidy for family incomes over $350 000. An annual cap of $10 000 will be applied to families with incomes over $185 710.
