to not understand the new Child Benefit rules on Higher Income

[Summeblaze]

Its just so confusing. DH and I filled in a tax return a few weeks ago as this year he fell into the Higher Income bracket for Child Benefit.

We went on to the site tonight to fill in one for the previous year (see previous thread) and it says on the top line "you have nothing to pay" and then underneath says we owe nearly £2000. Kind of contradicts each other and offices are closed til tomorrow. Will they take this off next years tax or do we have this to pay.

Anyone else already done this and can shed light on the procedure.

[emma123456]

Did you submit it before 31/12? They may be taking the tax is your PAYE code for 15/16.

[emma123456]

From your PAYE code for 15/16... Not is

[trixymalixy]

When exactly did you fill in the return? If it was on or before the 30th December they will take it from your tax code. If after then you have to pay it immediately.

Having being caught out once before and being similarly confused I suspect you may have to pay immediately unfortunately..

[Summeblaze]

We filed it on the 11th January. It said that Online Tax return needed to be done by the 31st January so I made sure I did it by the deadline.

[BeanCalledPickle]

How much does he earn and how many kids do you have?

[originalmavis]

Eh, what tax return? Did misss something? Duh...

[trixymalixy]

deadlines here

Although the deadline is the 31st of Jan, if you want it taken automatically from your tax code you have to fill it in by the 30th December.

I'm sorry but I think you have to pay the £2k by the 31st January.

I was caught out similarly the first time I filled in mine so did mine before the 30th December this time.

[trixymalixy]

Mavis if the higher earner in your household earns between £50-£60k and you claim child benefit you have to pay it back on a sliding scale. Above £60k you pay it all back. You have to fill in a tax return to calculate how much you owe.

[Summeblaze]

Earns around £56000 and have 3 kids.

It is looking like we missed the date. Im so fed up. I could have done it before then but thought we had til the end of january so didn't rush.

Gutted.

[arethereanyleftatall]

We literally don't have a clue what's going on with this.
We just cancelled our child benefit a few years ago.
But I think we were about 6 months too slow doing it. Nothing has ever happened about it. No requests to pay back the 6 months cb we had received.

[Caravanoflove]

So what happens if you don't fill in a tax return? I will earn 65k this year (one off) and had no idea about this and have done nothing.

[SaveSomeSpendSome]

According to my accountant you pay the tax on it, not all of it back.

I earn £70,000 a year before tax and have one child. I pay the tax on the child benefit back not the full amount.

[Kanga59]

caravan you'll need to pay the CB back. itS the claimants responsibility to know the eligibility criteria for claimed benefits. have a look at your CB letter for details of.who to contact (and a reminder of the income limits)

[dementedpixie]

No you should be paying the full amount of child benefit back as you lose it completely if you earn over £60K. We opted out of the payment

[Kanga59]

That's not correct SSS. All of your CB will be clawed back. maybe your accountant is adding it to your tax bill and calling it all one thing for you

[SaveSomeSpendSome]

Oh...

I went into detail with this about 6 months ago as i queried with him about whats the point in claiming it if i paid it back.

He assured me i just pay the tax on it so i was better off claiming it rather than stopping it

[MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig]

My Dh earns over the limit for child benefit and has told the tax people three times now that we don't want to receive it anymore. He has filled out his tax return in good time. He has since been fined for them receiving it late because their system didn't work properly and give him an authentication code, or something, and yes, we still continue to receive the bloody child benefit.

Basically the tax people have said 'we're too understaffed to do the job properly so you can do it yourself and tough shit if you get it wrong'.

[PamDooveOrangeJoof]

We got caught out by this the first year too and got stung by a bill we had to pay immediately.
It didn't say the deadline for paying back with paye on the paper copy we had, just on the website and by then we had already unwittingly missed the deadline!
Massive pain in the arse!!!

[PamDooveOrangeJoof]

And yes you pay back the entire amount that you received not the tax on it. Think your accountant has their wires crossed.

[Anomaly]

Do you have any spare money? If you can increase his pension contributions it will reduce the amount you have to pay back.

You can claim tax relief on pension contributions and as your DH is a higher rate tax payer at the moment that relief is 40% and you need to ensure that you're claiming that on the tax return.

You can pay in additional money into a pension fund up to certain limits. So if you could pay in £4.5k into his pension fund using last years allowances. He would get tax relief of 20% on that so his pension pot would actually receive £5625. In addition you could claim an additional 20% tax relief which would be £1125. It would take your DH's taxable income to around 50k so the child benefit charge would be around £0.

Its worth having a read on money saving expert about it, I'm certainly not an expert myself!

[Breadwidow]

Sss you will have to pay all the benefit back through the tax system unless you have huge pension contributions, as its your income after deductions (eg pensions, childcare vouchers) but before tax.

In my book it's bloody unfair, one person earns more than £50k and you have to begin to pay it back but if you both earn £49k you keep it all but that's a whole other can of worms

[MrsFrankRicard]

MsAdorabelle - my DH had a similar carry on with codes and what not, he had to wait weeks for a new code to be posted to him. You can cancel your child benefit online though and that worked fine, I received an email to say they had received the request and then there was no more benefit paid to our account after that month.

Savesome - you definitely have to pay the full amount back, given your income, you would be best to just cancel it.

online.hmrc.gov.uk/shortforms/form/CBOptOut is the link to cancel your CB.

[trixymalixy]

Caravan, your tax return for the 2015-2016 tax year will need to be filled in by the 30th Dec 2016. If by this year you mean the 2016-2017 tax year (I.e. From April this year) then the deadline for the tax return won't be until the 30th Dec 2017, so don't panic about having done nothing yet but apply for self assessment.

Ssss your accountant is wrong, you pay the whole amount of child benefit back. It could be that your pension payments and/or salary sacrifice take your gross earnings down into the 50-60k bracket and that's what your accountant means when he says it's still worth you claiming?

Summeblaze, it annoys me that they have two deadlines for the tax as I don't think they publicise the first deadline well enough. It's really shit that you've been caught out b

[Stickerrocks]

caravan You have a legal responsibility to inform hmrc that you are earning over £50k p.a. and have received child benefit. Then you are put into the self assessment system. There are fines & penalties for failing to do so. [https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge/overview]. HMRC do not accept the excuse that you didn't know you needed to do anything, so I suggest that you get in touch with them asap. You should be able to sort it out online.

[Stickerrocks]

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