New childcare tax break to be announced by the Government today - what do you think?

Discussing it on pm now

Childminders in my area charge about £7.00 per hour per child. So if you had say two under fives and you needed ten hour days to go to your 8 hour a day job, that would run you:
£700 per week
£35,000 per year (assuming two weeks when childminder is not paid, e.g. her hols)
£2,917 per month

And that's only two children!

The cost of childcare is crippling in this country. Until the government addresses this issue, lots of parents (men and women) will not be able to go to work and pay taxes and otherwise contribute to the economic recovery.

"so no more state paid childcare for SAHP's"

Ermm... do I go to work to pay my own childcare so I can contribute to childcare for those who don't go to work.... really??? Or are you just having fun winding me up?

Now, I am not talking about people who are unable to work. But, those who simply prefer not to.

Or maybe I missed the point.... please enlighten me.

Most childminders I know around here (this is outside London) charge £4 per hour per child, and look after a maximum of 3 children.

They all say that is the absolute limit they can manage on their own. My friend has 3 children two days a week 8-6 pm, 10 hours with no break. So that's two days at £120 per day. She also has to do the school run with her youngest two. She's completely exhausted on those days.

The other 3 days she has two children, so she earns a total of £520 per week, term time only. She doesn't get paid for holidays or sick leave, or days when children are ill and can't come. So she gets about 35 weeks a year on average, just over £18,000 gross.

I'm not sure how the cheapest childcare could be any cheaper than it already is!

e-petition for tax deductible childcare

Does anyone actually like the proposals (if they ever announce them)? Or do you think the whole thing is political suicide for both parties?

I think people are so angry about the loss of CB that even if they are given more under a tax benfit scheme they will still remember the anger come time to vote.

Sorry, I see Strix mentioned that already.

Subject now being discussed on BBc News channel. Looks like it hasn't been announced after all.

Link below to the document that was published today. I can't see any mention of this scheme. Has anyone seen confirmation of it anywhere?

assets.cabinetoffice.gov.uk.s3-external-3.amazonaws.com/midtermreview/HMG_MidTermReview.pdf

(Maybe I missed it while skim reading)

NotAQueef: it sounds like you have a great arrangement. I wonder if more employers might be prepared to set something similar up? DH and I would def go for it!!

I CANNOT for the life of me see the logic of saying;

The child benefit cut unfairly discriminates against single income families.

So to offset that,

we're going to give £2k PER CHILD to dual income families.

So, a family on one income of 60k loses every penny of their child benefit.

A family on two incomes of 49k (ie totalling 98k) keeps every penny of their child benefit AND gets this new tax break of 2k per child.

A family on two incomes of 1,000,000 (for example), totalling 2MILLION loses their child benefit, but gets this new tax break.

It is total insanity. And it seems like an ideological policy to force mothers back to work, totally going against their 'traditional family' stance. The 'most family friendly government ever' they claimed. I think not.

And who is going to run the so called Big Society once all the SAHMs are forced back to work? Who is going to go and help in schools? And what about people who cannot go out to work for whatever reason?

Dual income families ALREADY have 2 personal allowances, meaning they can earn a LOT more as a family before paying tax. The child benefit should have remained universal, as it is simple and fair. This is just a slap in the face for SAHMs.

Current childcare vouchers can be used at a variety of places (i.e. Kip McGrath). It will be interesting to see if that continues.

Is this actually being announced or not? Have just flicked through the mid-term review published 10 mins ago and it is not there....

According to the Sunday papers it is £2000 towards the cost of nurseries and childminders.

Is this per child or per taxpayer or per taxpayer per child?

How about OFSTED-registered nannies?

What happens to the childcare vouchers? Note that a big problem with vouchers is that if you are a 40pc taxpayer and change jobs, you can only get lower rate vouchers once you change jobs...

How do you claim this money?

I like some of the changes, it seems people would be better off than the current voucher scheme which doesnt currently save £2k a year and it also looks like it will only be paid to the working parents so no more state paid childcare for SAHP's.

Capping it to age 5 may backfire though. Whilst parents should be responsible for the whole cost of raising a child many wont want to pay full childcare so will simple leave and rely on benefits so we could end up paying more.

LexyMa.

I wouldn't have let / let anybody mind any of my dc with only a level 2 in childcare. Thats just a GCSE.

why can't they just make childcare cheap/affordable at the point of use. All this faffing around with tax relief and deductions is just baffling and it is nigh on impossible to work out if you will be better off or not. Therefore I assume for most - not.
It's just another way for the government to make it seem like they care about the plebs while actually shafting a further 10% of the population they missed with the last announcement!

The telegraph reports that details will be announced on Thursday. But they also said that it would be awarded to WOMEN to pay for someone to look after THEIR children while they work (how irresponsible)

Gotta love the subversive digs at working mothers

Strix I can not find anything in that document either.

The two year old funding has been around a while so that is not new.

Guess we will have to wait for the detailed version - by which time maybe they will no longer think tax deductable childcare is a good idea.

Is this instead of the free 15 hours per week? The 15 hours per week are worth almost £4k to me currently. The proposals will effectively double our childcare bill.

So you don't all have to search for it:

"We will, for the first time, ensure that all 2 year olds from low income households can access 15 hours per week of early education ? starting with the poorest 20 per cent in 2013 before extending it to 40 per cent in 2014."

Oh, thanks Dave and Nick... Or is it Naive and Dick?

Oh oh... it does say something about preeschool funding for lower income 2 year olds. Oh good, not for my 2 year old. But, once again, I can be made to pay for someone else to have a perk which I:

1. Am not entitled to
2. Cannot otherwise afford

How is that fair?

It isn't!

I got really excited until I read this thread

DH and I both claim £243 vouchers every month -it sounds like we will be worse off?

WHY won't they just make voucher amount unlimited

come on Coalition HQ, you're obviously reading this

BBC hasd posted a document here: assets.cabinetoffice.gov.uk.s3-external-3.amazonaws.com/midtermreview/HMG_MidTermReview.pdf

But I can't find squat about tax relief for childcare costs... surprise, surprise.

Ho hummmmmm...

I am assuming this would be brought in at a point when universal tax credits are in place and when in theory it would be possible to then allocate child benefit on household income rather than going on 1 persons salary. We are on of the "lucky" families who have a joint income in excess of 60k - but neither of us quite earn over 50k. Lucky to keep child benefit yes, but not so great to have the £800+ nursery bills each month. And we're not financially well off enough for me to stop working.

So to me this in theory sounds like a good plan. Base CB allocation on joint income, but then give tax breaks to working parents - and i don't mean mums, but situations where both parents work. However, whilst 2k sounds a lot, it makes a big difference if this is 2k off your tax bill, or 2k off your taxable income - as other people say, you already get over 2k off your taxable income at the moment via childcare vouchers.

Anyway I think it's a good idea in theory, assuming they make CB based on household income and are therefore compensating those households where both parents work and need to pay for childcare. But I also hope they make it for over 5s too - after school clubs can be expensive.

They should have just left things as they are. The cost of changing everything is almost certainly more than the amount they are saving.

Sounds to me like a man thought of this (sorry I know that's sexist)

Have the details been announced yet or will we be waiting months for that?