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How to avoid paying child maintenance:
because Google sees over 700 searches per month for the answer to this very question.
There are lots of people out there deploying lots of fiddly tricks to dodge child maintenance, but how many of them are getting right to the basics? Let me have a go at explaining how it’s done:
1 – Be a horrible person.
You won’t get very far in this game without being a morally bankrupt, dodgy git. You’ll have to put yourself before your own child, be happy to commit financial abuse, and generally think your needs are paramount in life. That sounds to me like a horrible person.
Being a narcissist* and a pathological liar* are also useful.
2. Find an equally horrible person to be your partner.
You won’t be comfortable with someone who make your conscience – if you have one left – feel bad, after all. You’ll probably need them to help you in all your dodgy shenanigans, so someone horrible enough to be comfy with depriving a child of a parent’s financial support is just the one for you.
The downside is that you’ll be hitched to a horrible person, but I think you’ll be with the person you deserve.
3. Scupper your own career, earnings prospects and peace of mind for decades.
Because earning less money for yourself is apparently preferable to giving any of it to your child. And you love receiving debt collection letters. And you enjoy wondering when your friends will find out you’re actually a horrible person.
And you don’t mind if the stress shortens your life, because if you’re dead you won’t have to pay the child maintenance, and that’s what’s important to you.
4. Drag your own family into immoral and illegal practices out of a misguided sense of loyalty.
You’ll probably end up enlisting your family members to help you dodge your responsibilities to your children, who are, as it turns out, their family members as well. So you’ll make them horrible people as well.
Bravo.
5. Brace yourself for old age with children who resent you.
Best case scenario for you – you make it all the way to your dotage without paying child maintenance and your children find out what a horrible person you were and still are (because there’ll have been enough time for everyone to find out). Better hope you don’t end up needing to rely on them for anything…
