Should the government make all childcare payments tax-free?

Sydney, yes thats right. We didn't join before as ds was going to be cared for by a relative but that didn't happen in the end. I did say to dh that perhaps we should have paid a minimal amount each month just to get us in the scheme but he saw it as throwing money down the drain. Turns out he was wrong and I was right, as I knew we were likely to end up needing a nursery.

Mrskpbw - In answer to your last paragraph, you are expected to claim in advance. Therefore you have to have pay for the vouchers when you aren't earning any money. This may not be the case for all employers, dh's employers are not known for their flexibility!

YES.

Bonnie - if you joined the scheme before 5th April 2011 you will still receive the same amount of childcare vouchers even if you are higher rate taxpayer. It's people who joined after who get less.

Childcare should absolutely be 100% tax deductible.

The end.

I really don't know what else to add, it would just make life so much easier if I only had to make one payment to DD's nursery, rather than work out each month how much I've got to pay after the voucher has been deducted from the balance of the invoice. It's so confusing and messy and expensive.

Ah, we're not higher rate tax payers so that's why ours isn't changing.

Bonnie - I understand being annoyed that you can't benefit because you're self employed (childcare should be tax deductible, I think) but surely that's nothing to do with your husband? You're taxed as individuals.

Also, I think he should question there being a cut-off date - this seems very wrong. What if you came back to work from maternity leave on April 1st. Could you not claim vouchers for a year?

It's changing if you are a higher rate tax payer in which case it's around £140.

The other thing that annoys me is we get less because dh is a higher rate tax payer and yet if this was being claimed from my salary I would get the full amount. But it can't be claimed from mine because I'm
self employed and my previous employer didn't run the scheme.

What's the new scheme? My husband and I each get £243 of vouchers every month; is this changing? I've not heard...

The other problem with the childcare vouchers is the way that the schemes are administered by some employers. We missed out on claiming vouchers this year because the cut off date was too early - the money was going to be taken out of dh's salary before ds started nursery which meant that I wasn't working and we couldn't afford to take the hit on one salary even though we would make savings in the long term.

Next year we have a similar admin problem. The cutoff for dh to claim the vouchers is 31st March, we won't find out if ds has a state nursery place until mid May, if he gets a state place we won't even need the vouchers!

It sometimes feels that everyone is conspiring against us!

Yes I think they should.

Child care costs are crippling. The Government are so out of touch that they fail to realise that even couples on good incomes are plunged into poverty when they have pre school children.