According to FSSP statistics for the first half of 2021, about 1.2 million judicial acts on the collection of alimony were being executed by the FSSP. In approximately half of all these cases, alimony providers are in arrears. Of course, not all of them are malicious non-payers of alimony, but there are also plenty of them, and many of them are far from poor people. Therefore, the state provides for enforcement measures that are used in extreme cases. Let's figure out what alimony debt can lead to imprisonment and when you should be wary.
How long can you be imprisoned for failure to pay child support?
As punishment for non-payment of alimony, not only fines, executive and compulsory labor are used. More serious penalties are also applied to defaulters:
- administrative arrest – from 10 to 15 days;
- arrest – up to 3 months;
- imprisonment – up to 1 year.
The procedure for applying punishment for non-payment of alimony is provided for by the following legal acts: Federal Law No. 323 of July 3, 2016 “On Amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes”; Art. 157 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation; Art. 5.35.1 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation; Federal Law No. 229 of October 2, 2007 “On enforcement proceedings.”
Read the law
As you can see, the real term is the strictest measure of liability for non-payment of alimony, therefore it is applied in exceptional cases to particularly daring evaders. Typically, the courts are lenient towards alimony workers and limit themselves to correctional labor for a period of 6-8 months. Even when the debt amounts to hundreds of thousands of rubles. An example is the verdict of the Sovetsky District Court of Samara No. 1-200/2019 dated 06/06/2019, where a draft dodger with a debt of 677 thousand rubles was sentenced to correctional labor for a period of 6 months.
Have you ever experienced delays in child support payments?
Not really
Penalties for malicious draft dodgers
For evading the payment of alimony, they can indeed be arrested and fairly harsh penalties applied to the culprit. The severity of the punishment directly depends on the degree of guilt and the accompanying circumstances under which the debtor became a willful defaulter. Article 157 of the Criminal Code provides for the following punishment options for this category of persons:
- Correctional labor for a total period of up to 1 year;
- Compulsory work for the benefit of society for a total period of up to 180 hours;
- Deprivation of the right to drive a car until the debt is fully repaid;
- Arrest for up to 3 months (the duration also depends on the degree of guilt of the evader);
- Full imprisonment for up to 1 year.
The penalties are quite severe, including for owners of their own cars. In addition, criminal punishment in your biography can become a dark spot that spoils your entire life, in any area. Another unpleasant side in such cases is the risk of deprivation of parental rights on the basis of the institution of a criminal case, as such. A parent deprived of rights for non-payment will still be obliged to provide financially for the offspring until adulthood, but it will be impossible to actively participate in his life and make any decisions regarding his fate.
When can you be jailed for alimony debt?
The main conditions for the application of punishment in the form of imprisonment:
- Existence of debt. Criminal and administrative liability is not related to the amount of debt. That is, liability can be applied if the debt is 5,000 rubles. or 500,000 rub. The fact of debt itself is important.
- The presence of guilt. If the parent is not guilty, there can be no punishment. For example, the debt arose while the parent was undergoing long-term hospital treatment. And if he specifically transferred the property to relatives, quit his job and fled the city, then these are guilty actions.
- Maliciousness. Maliciousness is the repetition of an offense. That is, after several notifications from the bailiff service, the debtor continues to delay alimony or pays a small part of the assigned amount. Violation of the law in the area of payment of alimony. A conscientious alimony payer should not hide his place of residence from the FSSP, hide income or material assets that may be seized; avoid official employment due to unwillingness to pay money to children; provide false information about your place of work or income.
In 2021, in order for an administrative or criminal penalty to be applied against an alimony defaulter, all four grounds must be considered in his actions.
In what cases can they be imprisoned for failure to pay child support? It all depends on the individual circumstances of the situation, the characteristics of the draft dodger, his behavior, attempts to repay the debt, repentance and awareness of the current situation.
For example, the Koptevsky District Court of Moscow sentenced an alimony evader to 6 months in prison with a debt of less than 200 thousand rubles due to the fact that he had already been convicted of a similar crime and deliberately evaded alimony, that is, he took maximum active steps for this (sentence in case No. 1-187/2016 dated 08/10/2016).
Expert opinion
Nikolaev Petr Ivanovich, expert on the assignment and payment of alimony
If you have any questions, ask them to me.
But this is rather an exception. Usually, even if the courts impose imprisonment, they impose it on probation. The crime under Part 1 of Art. 157 of the Criminal Code refers to crimes of minor gravity and is committed, as a rule, by non-working persons, therefore the predominant type of responsibility is corrective labor. If you are threatened with imprisonment for failure to pay alimony, you can turn to me for help. This does not mean that draft dodgers should relax - the bailiffs have enough tools to create problems for alimony workers.
Valid reasons for non-payment of alimony
There are situations in which the payer becomes a debtor not of his own free will, but due to prevailing circumstances. Let's consider some of them, if the payer:
- lost his job, but registered with the employment center on time and is actively looking for a new job;
- fell ill and incurred significant expenses in connection with treatment;
- made minimum payments in the last 4 months;
- did not pay the due amount due to late wages;
In these cases, the debtor does not face any punishment.
Procedure for applying punishment and types of liability
Administrative and criminal penalties may be applied to alimony defaulters. But the law establishes the procedure for their application:
- The claimant must submit a writ of execution, a court order or an agreement on the payment of alimony to the FSSP at the place of registration of the alimony holder.
- The bailiff initiates enforcement proceedings.
- The alimony provider has not paid child support for more than 2 months. The bailiff warns him about the application of administrative liability.
- The bailiff goes to court to impose administrative liability for non-payment of alimony. He can do this by his own decision or at the request of the recipient of alimony.
- The court makes a decision to hold the debtor accountable.
- The bailiff warns about the application of criminal liability. At the request of the recipient, the debtor is brought to criminal liability.
You cannot be punished for the same offense several times. Therefore, if the bailiffs have already drawn up a protocol under Art. 5.35.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, for the same offense one cannot be held criminally liable. You can also find out the amount by last name and gradually pay off the debt.
Conditions for criminal liability
The risk of criminal liability is an excellent motivation for unscrupulous payers, however, there are quite a lot of cases when parents are brought to punishment for alimony debts. Most often, the initiator of the punishment of the debtor is the recipient of alimony. The law states that assigning the status of a willful defaulter is possible only in court and in the presence of compelling evidence. The law does not say what kind of alimony debt a evader can be imprisoned for. The payment amounts are different for different cases, but for a debt exceeding 10 thousand rubles, the debtor may be deprived of the right to drive a car.
Regarding criminal liability, the recipient must prove that the other parent committed one or more of the following acts:
- He deliberately hid the true size of his income;
- Deliberately moved to a new home without warning the recipient and bailiffs in order to hide and mislead them about his whereabouts;
- Bailiffs have already put the payer on the wanted list for alimony arrears;
- The debt has acquired a size that qualifies as large;
- The payer constantly contacts the employment service, having an unofficial job and a fairly high income, deliberately imitates the absence of this in order to underestimate alimony payments;
- The payer has not made transfers to the recipient's account for more than 4 months;
- The payer ignores several court orders ordering alimony payments in a row;
- The parent obligated to pay child support has disappeared in an unknown direction and does not provide information about his whereabouts in order to avoid paying child support.
Application of these conditions to the payer is possible only if the recipient has a court decision on alimony. In the case of a voluntary agreement to pay alimony, the recipient must file a lawsuit in court and obtain an order from the court.
How to avoid going to jail for failure to pay child support
How to avoid punishment for non-payment of alimony? Yes, even malicious evaders sometimes manage to avoid responsibility. All they need for this is to periodically contribute small, insignificant amounts, give one-time gifts to their children, and make single purchases of things.
It is believed that this eliminates the repetition of a criminal offense and often serves as a basis for refusing to initiate a criminal case. In such cases, the FSSP recommends being guided by the legal position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, expressed in the Resolution of the Constitutional Court No. 13-P of July 30, 2001, according to which partial execution of a court decision does not ensure the protection of violated rights and does not exclude the criminality of the act. But there is no uniform practice, and investigators often refuse to initiate a case on this basis.
Criminal prosecution
Setting a punishment for malicious evasion of alimony is a simple procedure. The only difficulty for the recipient is to prove willful evasion. The lack of payments under the alimony agreement is not enough for the plaintiff; a court decision is required. If the parent living with the child has not previously applied to the court and does not have a writ of execution on the obligation of the second parent to pay alimony, the first action will be to assign alimony to the payer by the court.
The easiest way to do this is in the form of a court order:
- The recipient files a claim in the magistrate's court closest to the place of residence of the second parent. In the lawsuit, he asks to oblige the parent to fulfill his duties to the minor child on the basis of Art. 80 IC RF.
- After 5 days from the moment the court accepts the claim, an order and a writ of execution will be issued, on the basis of which the recipient will be able to demand legal payments from the payer. The interested party should file a claim with the bailiff service to recover funds from the debtor.
- If the payer continues to evade the obligation to help provide for the child, the recipient will be able to proceed to award criminal liability to the unconscionable parent. In this case, you should wait several months (at least 4), during which the payer will not make transfers to the account.
Deprivation of parental rights in case of criminal liability
As mentioned above, criminal liability for evasion of alimony may become a reason for deprivation of the debtor’s parental rights. If the recipient of alimony wants not only to punish the evader, but also to take away the basic rights of a parent, this request should be indicated in the claim. The following conditions are important:
- Confirmed fact of malicious evasion of alimony payments;
- Long-term evasion of the payer from raising a child and participating in his life.
Deprivation of rights for conscientious parents is a tragedy. If the payer does not have special family feelings for his child, he will still face certain consequences in the event of a positive court decision:
- The obligation to pay child support until adulthood will remain in the absence of most rights;
- Deprivation of the opportunity to protect the interests, demand meetings, make decisions in the life of a minor;
- Receive an inheritance in the event of the death of a child;
- Demand maintenance from the child (alimony) in case of disability due to old age.
The parent living with the child has complete freedom of action regarding decisions and legal transactions. These include:
- Changing the child’s personal data;
- Travel abroad;
- Adoption by a new spouse without the consent of the payer;
- Prohibition on communication between the child and the payer.
Criminal liability for evading child support payments is a real measure of punishment for unscrupulous parents. A comfortable childhood is a priority for the state; the laws contain many regulations aimed at respecting and protecting the interests of minors.
