More than 160,000 parents in Australia's child support system failed to lodge tax returns last financial year and avoided paying or receiving the correct amount in child maintenance payments from their ex-partner.
Experts warned that failing to lodge a tax return was a common tactic used by parents to avoid paying their full child support obligations and should be recognised as a form of economic abuse.
Figures obtained by the ABC show Services Australia, which administers the child support scheme, referred 168,082 parents to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) in 2022-23 for having overdue tax returns.
Government data showed there were more than 651,465 parents in the child support system, meaning a substantial proportion of returns could be outstanding.
According to Services Australia's figures just over three-quarters of child support parents were active paying parents without a debt.
Services Australia use tax returns to assess separated parents' income and work out how much child support they must pay.
The ATO can also use money from a parent's tax returns to pay any outstanding child support debts owed to the other parent.
If a parent doesn't file a return, their income is estimated based on either their last tax return, adjusted for inflation, or two-thirds of the male total average weekly earnings, whichever is higher.
Experts said parents often used this strategy to pay less in child support than they would if they declared their true income.
The impact can be devastating, according to Women's Legal Services Australia Executive Officer Lara Freidin.
"Australia has failed to recognise and respond to the link between non-payment of child support and economic abuse as a form of family violence," she said.
"It's a continuing form of violence."
Ms Freidin said non-compliance had a profound impact on women who made up 83.4 per cent of child support recipients and were already facing significant economic disadvantage.
Women's Legal Services recently conducted a literature review looking at non-payment of child support that drew on academic works, government inquiries and data, media, policy papers and reports from frontline workers.
It found reports of pa...
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