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Rebecca Coulson was “shocked” when she was sent two bills just weeks apart from Centrelink demanding she pay back more than $11,000 in childcare subsidies.
The mum-of-one received a bill for $7665 for the financial period 2018/19, which is due on September 22, with the letter stating that a review of her circumstances had uncovered that she had been paid too much in childcare subsidies.
Another bill arrived less than two weeks later, this time for the 2019/20 financial year for an amount of $3743, which needed to be paid by September 24.
Back then the 42-year-old’s daughter was attending childcare three days and was looked after a nanny twice a week while she worked as a sales director, but things have since dramatically changed.
“I was made redundant in June last year, so my financial circumstances have also changed compared to what they were three years ago, so to receive these invoices is quite a slap in the face,” she told news.com.au. “That’s two months to pay a large amount of money.”
Since being made redundant, Ms Coulson has been picking up contract work where possible but is averaging around 10 hours a week as she looks after her child before and after school, while her husband continues his job as a sales manager.
“We have lost pretty much one full income, which was my salary, and then we have been hit with these bills and I don’t know if another one is coming through,” she said.
”I don’t just have a bank account to find $11,000 in eight weeks. I’m home schooling and there was already financial pressure and that’s one more pressure we don’t need right now.”
The bills could also mean a huge blow to a personal dream, she revealed.
“I’ve been going through IVF and that’s the last potential cycle we could go through. So that’s another kick in the guts knowing if we have to pay that bill we miss out on going through another round of IVF,” she said.
The northern beaches mum said they have always used an accountant to do their tax affairs so found the bills “unusual”.
When she initially received the invoices, she said she “put her head in the sand” as she didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with it while enduring Sydney’s tough lockdown.
Then she was just going to pay up before discovering she’s not the only one impacted.
A Facebook post on a northern beaches mums group on the weekend blew up, attracting hundreds of comments from worried parents who had also been slugged with bills dating years back.
Mum-of-two Nadine Kliskey put up the original Facebook post after she received an invoice from Centrelink for $2500 for the 2018/19 tax year and $1200 for the 2019/20 financial year for overpayment of childcare subsidies, with both due in September.
