Is alimony paid from the premium, according to the Family Code of the Russian Federation?

The legislative framework

When making decisions on disputes related to alimony obligations, one must be guided by the provisions of the regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation. These include:

• The Family Code of the Russian Federation (came into legal force on December 29, 1995 on the basis of Federal Law No. 223) states that maintenance funds will not be deducted from all types of income, guaranteeing the alimony payer an adequate standard of living;
• Government Decree No. 841 of July 18, 1996 “On the types of income and wages from which money is withheld for child support”;
• Federal Law “On Enforcement Proceedings” No. 229 of October 2, 2007 regulates the procedure for collecting alimony from bonuses and other types of profit.

The above regulatory documents state that money for alimony obligations cannot be deducted from the following categories of profit:

• maternity capital and other types of targeted assistance for children;
• business trips;
• one-time benefits for the funeral of a close relative;
• compensation for damage caused to health;
• assistance to persons affected by natural disasters;
• pension if the alimony payer is the only breadwinner in the family.

At the same time, financial assistance for a child will be paid from the following profit categories:

• salary;
• compensation for sick leave and vacation pay;
• pensions;
• bonuses;
• overtime;
• profit from a commercial lease agreement;
• income from business activities.

Important! In each specific case, the accrual of funds for alimony will occur based on the individual characteristics of work activity and the categories of income of the alimony recipient.

Features of holds

Some businesses set unofficial bonuses. The reason is the desire to reduce the tax burden. Such actions violate the law, but many managers agree with them in practice.

There are several types of reward systems in Russia:

1. Both the salary and the bonus are “black” . In this case, collections are carried out only when fixed amounts for payments are established.
2. "Gray salary" . Official payments for labor are at the minimum wage level. The employer significantly reduces the main costs associated with solving such problems. Alimony is collected only from officially recorded earnings.
3. Both types of payments are “white” . Withholding amounts does not cause any difficulties. It is enough to follow the procedure established at the level of current laws. The employer is responsible for each employee's tax obligations. All income of obligated persons is tracked without any difficulties.

What does the law say about bonuses and alimony?

In order to avoid disputes and inaccuracies, the law established a list of those sources of income from which deductions will be made for the maintenance of children. There is also a list of types of profit that are not subject to alimony obligations.

Therefore, when calculating alimony and transferring money to children, enterprise accountants fully consider the items of income of a working citizen in order to avoid violation of the property rights of each party.

It is not necessary for the alimony payer to study whether alimony is paid from the premium. Since the transfer of finances occurs automatically. The company's accountant has the bank account number of the children's legal guardian. And during the payroll period, the employee prepares the bank for the order:

• the amount of funds accrued to the worker;
• the amount of child support that is immediately sent to the child’s parent.

About the procedure

You will need to take the following steps to officially collect alimony:

1. Obtaining a document in favor of the legality of withholding funds for the maintenance of a minor. The basis is based on court decisions, FSSP decisions, and notarized agreements. If the provisions of such documents are not immediately implemented, they become enforcement requirements.
2. The received papers are transferred to the accounting staff at the enterprise where the citizen works. The necessary application in this case will be a certificate from the bank account from where the money comes.
3. When the next payments arrive, the funds are automatically written off.

At what premium is alimony calculated?

According to the articles of the Labor Code, each enterprise can independently establish rules for providing salaries to its employees. Local features of cash accrual include:

• terms and periods of payments;
• salary amounts for individual positions;
• special surcharges for night shifts and special working conditions;
• mandatory bonus.

Based on the sum of all these indicators, the employee’s salary will be paid. But in practice, there are several types of bonuses. The first includes regular and constant payments. Such accruals are provided for by local regulations and are taken into account in the person’s official income.

There is also a special bonus when money is paid to employees for special achievements at work or on the occasion of a holiday. These are one-time and irregular payments that are not provided for by the local Regulations “on wages”, and therefore are issued by a separate order of management.

Attention! Whether alimony is withheld from labor bonuses depends on the category of payment. Alimony will be transferred from regular bonuses, but such funds cannot be deducted from one-time special bonuses.

Remuneration system

Art. 135 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation directly determines that the remuneration system is reflected in the local acts of the organization (Regulations on remuneration), agreement or collective agreement. Local acts are developed and approved within the enterprise. They are put into effect by order of the manager, in some cases they are agreed upon with the trade union organization.

In fact, the payment system is a unified list of payments with an approved procedure and conditions for the accrual of funds.

Individual entrepreneurs who use hired workers regulate the payment system with an employment contract.

How to determine whether alimony is paid from the premium?

There are two ways to determine whether alimony is calculated from the premium in each specific case. The first is to contact the company’s accountant directly. The accounting employee must check the payment documents, as well as the order of the head of the company. After studying the documentation, the employee will be able to clarify from which types of profits funds were withheld, as well as in what amount.

The second option is self-check. This is a long-term method, but it won’t work any other way if the accounting department is located not at the institution’s base, but in another city (for example, a regional center). You will need to study the following documents:

• an employment contract (its provisions indicate the rules for the provision of wages, as well as its components);
• collective agreement, if any (such an agreement can change the working conditions and remuneration of workers, but only for the better);
• management order on the basis of which a specific bonus was made;
• Regulations on wages in production.

Is there a procedure

The Government Decree “On the List of types of wages and other income from which alimony for minor children is withheld” directly establishes the possibility of collecting alimony payments from bonuses paid to the employee by the employer.

This indicates the possibility of such a procedure and its regulation by the legislator.

However, in order to collect alimony from the bonus, it must be of an official nature, that is, it must be taken into account in the acts of the enterprise or in the employment contract with the employee. Only from such a premium is alimony withheld.

Are alimony and loan obligations directly related? The answer is presented in the article “Do alimony and credit depend on each other?” You can learn about the purpose and use of alimony indexation in a fixed monetary amount here.

Alimony from a one-time bonus

Government Resolution No. 841 establishes whether alimony is deducted from each specific type of premium. The articles of the Resolution indicate that bonuses can be regular or one-time. And, regardless of the frequency of payments, money for child support may be withheld from him. It all depends on how such bonuses are recorded in local documentation.

If the bonus is specified in the Regulations “on wages”, then the money will be taken. If such incentive is not provided, but is paid on the basis of a separate order from management, then alimony will not be calculated from her.

What are the payments?

The first fact that is important to study is the features of the enterprise’s reward system. If the bonus is provided for by internal documents of the organization, it means that they are subject to legal accounting. This refers to the following types of documentation:

• Labor agreements between interested parties.
• Provisions regarding remuneration, bonus fund.
• Collective agreements.
• Provisions regarding payments for work performed.

It is important that the papers describe the calculation of remuneration and accrual rules.

Alimony from annual bonus

Providing cash incentives to employees based on last year's performance is not uncommon. And how to calculate such profit depends on local rules for paying salaries to employees.

For example, local documents of some enterprises establish that each employee receives a bonus once a year for the results of work over the past 12 months of work. This is a one-time incentive, but funds for children will be deducted from it, since the payment is provided for by local orders.

The second option is that citizen Ivanov received a one-time incentive for the successful conclusion of a transaction by investors, which influenced the increase in the company’s productivity. The management decided to encourage Ivanov by providing a one-time allowance. Such bonuses are not taken into account when collecting alimony obligations.

Collection of funds for the provision of a minor from the bonus for the year worked

The so-called “13th salary” is paid in large companies, and the reasons for its issuance and the calculation rules are determined by local regulations. It is a mistake to think that this employee income should not be subject to child support obligations. To determine this, it is necessary to find out its presence in the employee compensation system used. Internal standards are adopted by enterprises to optimize tax payments, because when submitting reports, it is necessary to justify the incentives issued.

Alimony from bonuses received over the past period

The court can assess alimony obligations not only from the current period, but also for the past time. At the same time, the statute of limitations for such disputes is three years. If the judge ordered payments in a specific percentage of the salary (25% for the benefit of one child, 33% for the maintenance of two children, 50% for three or more children), then the accountant will have to recalculate the citizen’s entire profit over the past period of time to establish the amount generated debt. In this case, the following rules must be taken into account:

• money will be withheld only from regular profits (salary and permanent bonuses);
• special bonuses will not be taken into account;
• the debt will be calculated for the period from which the judge appointed.

If the collection of funds for alimony obligations was assigned only in the new (current) year, and the citizen received a bonus for the past year (for example, for high performance results), then deductions from this amount will not be made.

For example, Ivanov K. works as a turner at a factory. On January 5, 2018, a court decision to pay alimony in favor of one child in the amount of 25% of profits came into legal force. This decision was transferred to the company's accounting department for automatic payments. The court decision states that since Ivanov’s ex-wife went to court on December 1, 2017, the amount of debt began to form from the beginning of December last year.

On 02/03/2018, Ivanov was awarded a one-time bonus for high performance results over the past year in the amount of 60 thousand rubles (5 thousand for each month). According to the provisions of the law, such bonuses must be taken into account when calculating alimony obligations. But, the obligation to pay money in favor of the child arose from December 1, 2020. Therefore, the accountant must prepare papers for the transfer of funds in the amount of 25% of the 5,000 monthly premium, namely 12,500.

Determining the amount of alimony

According to Art. 80 of the RF IC, parents must equally participate in providing for the minor.

Based on this, the legislation has introduced obligations to pay child support to those parents who, for some reason, do not live with the child and do not spend their earnings on him. It is clarified that a spouse can file a claim for financial support for a common child while in marriage, in the process of its dissolution, or after the dissolution of the marital relationship for the entire time until the child turns eighteen years old.

As a general rule, collection of funds occurs in shares of income:

• For one minor, 25% of the earnings of the person liable for alimony is assumed;
• For two children - 33.33%, regardless of whether children were born in the same family or from different marriages;
• For three or more - 50%, each child is entitled to an equal share of half the income of the payer of the funds, the amount of payments can be reduced in proportion to the number of children of the person liable for alimony.

These percentages are also taken into account when deducting alimony from premium payments, since they are an integral part of the work activity of the payer of the funds.

Another way to determine the amount of alimony is to establish a fixed amount of money that must be transferred to the recipient every month until the child reaches adulthood. However, this method of collecting funds does not apply to deductions from premiums, since the amount of deductions is fixed and is not subject to any increase due to changes in the amount of actual income.

Calculation example

As noted above, alimony will be deducted only from bonuses, which are an integral part of the salary and are provided for by a personal or collective agreement. So, the formula for calculating monetary obligations in this case will be as follows:

1. Calculation of the total amount of income, which consists of salary (50,000 rubles), monthly bonus (12,000), as well as an allowance for night work (7,000). Thus, the monthly salary of the alimony worker was 69,000 rubles.
2. Of all types of official profit, mandatory income tax deductions are made to the state budget in the amount of 13%; if taxation is subtracted, the person’s “net” earnings is 60,030 rubles.
3. The court ordered deductions in favor of the child in the amount of 25% of income. Therefore, every month the child’s legal guardian will receive 15 thousand rubles.

In judicial practice, there are situations when the alimony payer protests the amount of deductions made. But only 5% of such claims are satisfied if there are actual violations on the part of the accountant. In this case, the child’s finances are not taken away, but child support is reduced until the illegal difference in transfers is compensated.

A case from judicial practice

Some debtors try to understate their income. Judicial practice encounters cases where claims are filed for incorrect payment calculations.

An example is the appeal ruling of the Oktyabrsky District Court of Arkhangelsk in case 11-100/2017, adopted on February 20, 2017. The plaintiff challenged the calculation of earnings drawn up by the bailiff. The argument was that there was a discrepancy between the amounts specified in the employment contract and those received into the account (the transfers turned out to be less due to fines). The court refused to satisfy the demands, citing a lack of evidence and the theoretical possibility of receiving earnings in cash or to another bank account.

As a result: are bonus payments taken into account when calculating the amount of alimony obligations?

Mandatory maintenance of one's own children is regulated by the Family Code of the Russian Federation. Regardless of whether the children were born within or outside of marriage, both parents are obliged to provide them with financial assistance. As a rule, the mother living with the minors provides education and general care, and the father pays child support obligations.

Practice shows that there are several types of bonuses: regular, collective, personal and non-systemic. Mandatory collection of alimony is carried out only for the first two types of additional payments. Personal and non-system bonuses are carried out by separate orders in the accounting department of the employing organization in order to optimize taxation.

Child support protects the financial interests of children if they are being raised by one parent or guardian. According to the law, alimony is withheld not only from wages, but also from bonuses.

But not everything is so categorical. There are certain nuances in the light of which alimony obligations are not accrued for all types of bonuses. We will talk about these subtleties in our article.

One-time and annual payment

Expert opinion

Davydov Alexander Yurievich

Civil law consultant with 20 years of practice. Author of numerous articles on legal topics

The employer's competence includes issuing local acts. The employer has the right to independently establish types of incentives for employees. The adoption of a local regulatory act ensures the regulation of relations arising in the process of remuneration.

A type of monetary incentive is payment in the form of bonuses. Features of bonuses depend on a number of criteria: length of service, speed of implementation of the work plan, etc.

In case of collection of alimony from a one-time premium, the following are taken into account:

• regulations on the remuneration system;
• nature of payments.

When deciding on the possibility of deducting funds from bonuses, you should determine the availability of a form of earnings in local internal documents. Written confirmation is a guarantee of recovery.

The process of deducting one-time bonus payments requires establishing a connection with the performance of work.

The general principles of collection apply to the procedure for withholding alimony from the annual premium.

Kinds

An employee in the course of his work activity may repeatedly receive various bonuses that differ from each other for some reasons.

Basically, the following types of similar payments are distinguished, from which alimony is subsequently taken:

• One-time.
• Annual (or issued at other intervals, for example, quarterly).

One-time

Bonuses that are one-time in nature can be paid to a person not only on the basis of work activity. The reasons for paying bonuses can be considered:

• Labor merits in accordance with the employment contract, collective agreement and other internal documents of the organization.
• Bonuses in accordance with personal merit based on the decision of the organization's management.
• Bonuses for the capture of criminals, commission of other socially significant actions (does not apply to employee bonuses, but is also a one-time income of the person).
• Other types of bonuses that are one-time in nature.

One-time bonuses can also serve as a source of alimony.

If an agreement has been concluded between the parties, then a separate filing of a claim is not required. The amount of the penalty will be equal to that specified in the agreement or judicial act (for example, if there is one child, it will be a quarter of the premium amount).

Annual

Bonuses regularly paid at work are also part of the basis from which alimony is collected.

They are calculated in the general manner - first, taxes are calculated from the premium amount, and then alimony is paid from the remaining amount.

The bonus can be not only annual, but also, for example, quarterly or monthly. It all depends on the terms of the employment contract, collective agreement or other documentation of the employer.

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Based on the contents of the Family Code of the Russian Federation, it is necessary to note that alimony, according to general rules, is withheld from a citizen’s monthly income. However, many alimony payers mistakenly believe that a person’s monthly earnings mean only wages.

Such a judgment is considered incorrect, since the content of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 841 of 1996 lists a list of additional income from which alimony can be withheld. This publication will discuss whether alimony payments are subject to recovery from premiums, the conditions for withholding funds, and will provide an example of calculating the deductible amount.

Error correction

What to do if the bonus was not taken into account and, as a result, they forgot to transfer alimony from it. An error may occur unintentionally, due to ignorance or incorrect definition of the accrual base. However, the interests of the child are infringed, so the alimony debt must be repaid. There is no universal solution algorithm. But we recommend choosing one of the options:

1. Subtract the amount owed from subsequent payments. This could be bonuses or salary funds. To do this, it is necessary for the employee to write a statement agreeing to additional withholding of money. In addition, you must comply with the 20% limit (Article 138 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).
2. The employee must independently repay the alimony debt from personal funds by providing a receipt or receipt to the accounting department. It is important to ensure that the calculation of the amount that was forgotten to be deducted corresponds to the money transferred by the employee.

It is optimal if the issue of erroneous overpayment of funds to an employee due to the fact that the required alimony was not withheld from the bonus was resolved peacefully. And to avoid arrears on alimony obligations, the debt is repaid by the employee himself.

The issue of taking into account bonus funds when calculating the base for alimony is ambiguous. Therefore, if there is an ambiguous interpretation of the purpose of a bonus, it is recommended to obtain legal advice. Since the official responsible for calculating wages and withholding alimony will bear disciplinary liability for his mistake. But the payer is responsible for the issue of alimony debt.