Board payments

Our son who is on a sickness benefit is staying with us.
How much should We ask for board.?

How much extra does it cost you to keep him for food and power? Is it long or short term? (Its ok to help for a couple of weeks but long term is a different matter) Does he help out about the place? Are you in the position to subsidise him? How much did he tell WINZ he was paying you?
Even if you take some money and put it aside for him as a nest egg for when he is better and getting back on his feet.

Hope he improves soon with you good care

Do you need the money? Does he spend his benefit on (in your opinion) useless things?

I have a friend who is on a widow's benefit herself and needs the money and she asks for $50 per week and her daugher who is working full time buys all her own food.

And I also know people (she lawyer/accountant and he on a 100K+ salary, too) and they asked for $100 per week per child when they were between school and uni doing a holiday job, saving up for the uni fees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The kids had to pay $50 board from age 15 onwards.

TKPs idea is excellent if he isn't good with managing his funds.

I think He will be with us for 3 months.
He does help around the farm.
We have to take him to appointments.
He has an appointment with winz on Tuesday next week so We were just trying to get some idea.

My niece was told by WINZ that $125 per week should be paid to her mother for full board. It didn't happen:rolleyes:

An exchange host family gets around $125 depending upon the organisation that the student comes through.

We were told that the cost to us to house and feed an extra adult would be around $75 per week if they buy their own personal items and don't blow out the internet usage. I think this amount is conservative and doesn't take the current meat, fuel and electricity prices into account.

we have a boarder on full board at $115 per week.

$125 sounds more than fair and remember Winz will calculate his benefit amount taking into account what he is paying.
Would he be putting petrol in the car on appointment days, what does a return trip cost you?

Just from memory I think my boy was getting about $215 a weeK invalids benefits with all the entitlements included before he went into the nursing home (WINZ also paid his rent on top of that directly to housing corp) and that dropped to about $90 a week when he was in the home and the balance was paid direct to the home and the hospital board paid the balance of his care, at least I think thats how it worked.

It costs about $30.00 a round trip and he does not pay.
I think he only gets about $130.00 a week on the sickness benefit .
So We will probably look at about $120.00.If they aggree to that.
He still has to help support His family too.

I knew somebody in this position, and watching what went on taught us a salutary lesson. In 2002, board was agreed at $80 per week, after family got involved. The mother was soft on her son and let things ride for many years, because he would not agree to pay any more. It went on like this for about 8 years.

Whatever was left after the board was paid, the son spent on books, newspapers and magazines, as well as "junk food" items that he didn't really need. On several occasions, the automatic payments for the board didn't go through because the son had spent too much from the account. By the time the mother found out what had happened, her account was in overdraft and the son had spent all the money in his account, with no way to pay back the missing payments. Some of them were eventually repaid, but not all.

None of these problems ever happened until WINZ got involved and told the son that he had the right to manage his own finances. Prior to that, the mother paid the son an allowance that he could spend as he wished, and kept what was needed for board.

I'm not trying to tell you how to run things in your case Kalnetta, because every family is different. Just pointing out some pitfalls which could affect you in case you aren't aware of them

I am in a totally different camp on this one. He is your son = nothing!

On the other hand, you can talk with WINZ with him and find out what would be fair in their opinion to cover board and then you will have to declare that in your tax return as income and be pinged an additional say 17.5% tax (whatever your rate is) on what he is paying you. On a sickness benefit? Yes you may well be able to get WINZ to pay you board out of his benefit and he gets to deal with what is left but ...

You say he still has to look after his family - with what is left over? Not happening as that will mean nothing and how is that helping him move forward?

You don't make it clear how old he is, whether this a psychological required benefit or an accident based benefit (and I am not asking you too!) but age, income etc are so many factors to take into account.

If on the other hand, he is getting his full benefit and willingly gives you $X to cover petrol costs etc then that has no tax implications. If he won't then maybe you do need to pursue the line of taxed income to ensure you are not out of pocket. Guess I am struggling with the concept that he is your child and unless some Doctor has written a bogus certificate to get him a sickness benefit and really he is a total waste of space then I don't get it.

I do not in any way want or need you to put any personal information up on this site in explanation (that is private and your business alone) but just throwing a different opinion into the pot for you to consider...and check whether I am right in what I have said about tax etc.

DiDi;421162 wrote: ...
On the other hand, you can talk with WINZ with him and find out what would be fair in their opinion to cover board and then you will have to declare that in your tax return as income and be pinged an additional say 17.5% tax (whatever your rate is) on what he is paying you.
...and check whether I am right in what I have said about tax etc.

What you have said about tax isn't correct DiDi.

Inger and I had homestay students for many years while we lived in Auckland. They paid $125 per week each. So long as we had no more than 2 boarders at a time, we were not obliged to declare the income from board in our tax return. We checked this out with our accountant at the time, and that was the IRD's ruling. I wouldn't expect that the position has changed significantly, or you wouldn't find many people willing to take in boarders.

kalnetta;421126 wrote: He still has to help support His family too.

If he has a family he is old enough to know how much it costs to feed and provide for an adult. Give him a list of everything extra it is costing you to support him, and ask him to arrive at a fair figure. He should be offering to pay the $30 thing without question. Kids do have to grow up sometime.

Grant you are right - can't past and copy the IRD site to here but it states that if your boarder is paying less than $243 a week then you don't have to declare it. Good grief!

That is so much more than any sickness beneficiary would receive! So what is the answer? Can family be a boarder? I don't know but what a total nonsense this is. A boarder will cost you over $243 a week to support? Bollocks. No wonder this country is having to borrow $300 million a week. How many people are ripping off that wee bit of information?

Cinsara, You are so right.We have supported him over a number of years .
He has asked us to suggest a fair payment so that is what We are trying to do.