Do we benefit from the new childcare support in April if we earn over £100k?

I can't get my head around people who come onto threads and add comments that are completely unhelpful and judgemental and yet here we are. Let me break it down for you:

A person earning over 100k gets 67k post tax. Bear in mind most people earning over 100k are going to living in london. you have two kids. I am going with suburb amounts cos thats where i live but imagine in london proper would be waaay more.

Nursery fees full time for two kids here would be - £37,000 a year round here (and that's not one of the expensive things). That's more than half your take home pay!

A three bed house minimum would be £2000pcm for either rent or mortgage so call that £24k a year. Council tax is an additional £2k a year, gas and electric and water etc say another £3k, commuting into central london = £3k a year.

So that adds up to £69k a year and that's before the cost of a car, clothes, food, going out. that is just the basic necessities.

Someone earning £99k gets £600 a YEAR less but saves approx £22k on their childcare cost. PLUS they get the tax free childcare so that saves an addition £4k per year.

So the difference in earning £600 a year net could cost you £26k a year. You have to be earning i think £153k to get back to the same disposable income as you had at £99k

Seeing the problem here for those earning £100-150k? oh and between £100k-£125k you also start losing your personal allowance and at £125k start paying additional tax.

when things end on a cliff edge you make parents need to give up their careers just to pay for their childcare.

My DH and I cut our hours and paid more in to pensions for a few years so we had more time with our children and got the 30 free hours. No regrets. We now have children in private school so we aren't using the state system. Our second DD is in reception and gets the 15 hours the whole year due to her summer birthday.

But why shouldn’t you, when you’re paying into the tax system which enables the system to exist at all? It’s not just about childcare, it’s about early years education.

Would you say that someone earning over £100k can probably afford private school so shouldn’t be allowed a state place? Or should be able to afford private healthcare so shouldn’t be able to take their kids to the GP? Or can afford to have a swing set in their garden so shouldn’t use the one at the park?

This with bells on

I'm just saying if you're household income is over £100k, you probably don't need help with childcare payments.

There are other benefits and other funded childcare hours available for those in some of these situations. I currently have a funded 2 year old for 15 hours for a single parent who isn't working.

The funded hours about to start in April is the Working Parents Entitlement

Yes even if no shared finances. That one is very odd but I suppose goes with the one in the house earning over 100k and disregarding maintenance for benefit calculations but not step dad's income.

…but once it gets to university level, it is household income that is considered, even if the household adults are a mum and stepdad.

it is all a bit inconsistent!

@belladonna22 Thanks for your clarification. I must have assumed that the extension would be under the same criteria for 3–4-year-olds, but it appears that’s not the case.

I was going to edit my earlier post to explain I got it wrong but it won’t let me.

Sorry just to clarify the 30hrs is always conditional. 15hrs is universal so you will be able to claim that.
If, as I understand, the new age limits have the same conditions you might get 15hrs. Or that might be only for low income families from 2 as it is now.

The 15 hours for 3 year olds IS universal. It’s the 30 hours that isn’t.

Both salaries need to be under 100k.
You lose it as soon as 1 parent is at 100k after pensions. So if you earn 100k and your partner 5k you lose it but if you both earn 99.5k you keep it. Overall household income is not considered, because when it used to be it was used to control women and we want to be independent financially not counted as a unit for tax purposes this is a consequence. Worth it I think.

OP, no you will not be able to use the new scheme for 2 year olds. You will get 15 hours when your child is 3 years, which always starts the term after they turn 3.

This always pops up on these threads.

It is a question, and the question has been answered.

We are very much on the cusp. And we’d be stupid not to keep one salary just under the £100 mark while we have two children in childcare.

High earners pay the highest tax but should get nothing out of the system they pay in to? Should they pay for their child to go to state school also?

No thev3 Yr olds is also and has always been unless 1 member of the household earns over 100k. Always. No childcare hours are universal in that sense.
It used to be that if you were very very low earner like free school meals low you got free hours from 2 instead of 3 to try and make up for already being behind in important cognitive and social skills. Now everyone inder 100k gets the same there is no additional provision for the disadvantaged.

I can see that there is an argument for this.

I know some parents (let’s face it, almost always women) become stay at home parents for the love of it but some do so for other reasons, and sometimes it’s an inability to get and hold down a job either due to disability, mental health, chaotic lifestyle and so on. These children are probably the ones who would most benefit from a nursery place and can’t access it. So I suppose it’s technically true they don’t need childcare but the children would probably benefit from it.

Why would you need to on that wage?

I'm trying to get my head round the fact that the household income is over £100k pa and you want help paying childcare...

This is a big bugbear of mine too. They should stop referring to ‘working families’ and start saying low-middle income working families. Higher earners will continue getting screwed in all directions.

Why would 'full time mothers' be classed as working or indeed need childcare?

And when I say "outside of the home," I don't necessarily mean physically, just pointing out that they don't count full-time mothers and carers as "workers."

You'll continue to be able to claim the 15 universal hours from 3 (which you would be entitled to under the current system) but unfortunately you won't benefit from any of the new offering. There's a good breakdown here: www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/upcoming-changes-to-childcare-support/

What causes so much confusion is that in all the announcements and written materials, the government loves to say it's available to "all working families," when in fact it's not - only to those where both parents work outside of the home and neither earns £100k or more of taxable income. However, you have to dig to find that caveat.

It states eligible working parents of 9 month olds.

Eligible working parents are those where both parents work and earn under £100k.

Here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/funding-plan-revealed-for-free-childcare-from-nine-months-old

So they don’t explicitly state it, but the article says they’re building on the current system and extending the current eligibility parameters to all children between 9 months and 5 years old.

Currently all* children in England over 3 get 15 hours and eligible parents get the extended 30 hours (15 hours universal + 15 hours extended).

*There are some parameters but it’s basically all children who are British citizens/have right to remain/asylum/etc.