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

I agree that if you could simply either use childcare vouchers OR get tax relief on money paid for childcare via self assessment than that would actually be helpful to families. They could chuck in tax relief on money paid for university tuition too - now that would be a vote winner!

Our two are now out of nursery. We both work and are enrolled in our employers' childcare voucher schemes as after school / holiday clubs are needed. Has there been any mention on over 5s yet?

I think there may be some advantage in this, although it will all depend on the detail. However for those of us who are self employed it may be good as vouchers depend on employment and childcare is not tax deductible.

I'm often amazed by people who get vouchers but don't realise they're not actually saving £245 a month by using them. You just don't pay tax on that £245. So you only save about £49 per month on a 20% tax rate, which is £588 per year. £2000 is loads more than that, BUT, if it's only for under 5s it will be a huge blow to working parents of school-age children.

frankly, I think whatever they offer at the moment, we will all lose out. I claim the maximum £243/month and my nursery still takes about £600/month from my bank for fees. I look forward to the day when my daughter is out of nursery...(it's great btw, it's just the fees which are mindblowingly expensive).

Just in case anyone reading this quickly doesn't know how childcare vouchers work, I sacrifice £2913 of my salary and it gets turned into vouchers which are sheltered from tax. If I leave my job, any that I have accumulated (for example, while on mat leave), go poof.

It's an idiotically designed scheme but even the small amount of tax relief it gives us is massively welcome, at time when we're feeling completely screwed over.

I remember trying to explain to a Spanish friend my childcare costs. She practically fainted.

I would really love to see the figures on scrapping the whole voucher / tax credit scheme and investing that money in subsidised childcare.

Childcare in UK is horrendously expensive, and we have comparatively low wages and high housing prices.

For lots of women, this means not being able to work, as it costs them more to commute and pay for childcare than they can earn.

The comment on that Torygraph article are sickening. Loads of "why should the taxpayer subsidise your nursery place, you chose to have children", "women should stay home and look after their own children", "don't have children if you can't afford to put them in nursery" etc etc. Do these people realise we have the highest childcare costs in Europe? How narrow-minded and idiotic. Working parents pay tax. Nursery employees pay tax. Children are the tax-payers of the future; getting people into work through affordable childcare benefits everyone!

OK so at the moment DH and I both claim £243 per month of vouchers. That totals £2913 each per year, £5,832 between us.

So this looks like a cut in our eligibility?

Wouldn't be the bloody first cut. I am feeling screwed on about ten different counts at the moment.

First, the total is a pittance compared to the £9,486 which we pay for the baby for a three day week at nursery (£62 a day). Then there is the cost of before and after school and holiday care for DD1 (no family help).

(Childcare costs crippled us so thoroughly that we left a 4 year gap between our two children so we would not have two in nursery.)

Then the childcare voucher rules were changed so DH, as a higher rate tax payer (just), would have to leave the scheme if he changed jobs and rejoin at a much lower rate.

Then, the nursery we hope baby will go to when over 2 decided to use the fact that DH was a higher rate tax payer to double their fees. (Council nursery).

Then I am on maternity leave at the moment and all the groups I used to go to with DD1 have been closed down due to Council cuts. They are replaced by private groups at £8 a throw

Then we lost our child benefit.

Commuting, energy and food costs are through the roof, and the baby has to stay in our room as we physically cannot fit a single bed and cot in DD1s room (London housing costs), but at least my parents and PILs are happily holidaying two or three times a year from their four bed houses and enjoying their WFA, massive housing equity, TV license etc etc

If this sounds whiny, it's because I feel whiny, frankly. Watching Gideon Osborne crow about giving up his child benefit, when he is on a huge salary, plus trust fund, plus made so much money selling the home the taxpayer funded the equity in... AAAAAAAAAARGH.

Cheers you fucking Tories.

It's still amazing to me that you can claim a chauffeur as a work expense and claim back tax but childcare is left out of the picture.

So basically they're just scrapping the tax break that working parents of school-age children get. A huge step backwards. Why the heck don't they just make anything paid on childcare tax-free? Wouldn't that be far more fair and simple to implement? I'd happily do my own assessment if I could claim back the tax on the thousands of pounds we pay for childcare.

This doesn't seem any improvement on the vouchers - quite the opposite in fact. It's a real concern that it's under fives only and that it's so 'woman' focused. The government should be seeking to support working parents. It's so frustrating to have childcare publicly labelled as a 'woman's issue' only. It really isn't!

Pretty typical of this government though - trying to look 'fair' when actually they're screwing you over again.

I agree as well that something should be done for parents of university age children.

I think the problem would be solved for families with one earner if that earner was allowed to claim the tax allowance of the non working partner. It does seem that one earner families are losing out quite a lot in this latest round of 'reforms'.

It would perhaps have suited us, a 2 income family, (though neither of us are on high salaries), and we did actually use the voucher scheme anyway.

Supporting the needs of working parents can only ever be a good thing IMO, making work and the cost of childcare affordable is especially important for women IMO because it always does seem to be the woman who steps off the career ladder with lifelong impact on future earnings.

HOWEVER if this is in place of cb it seems extremely unfair to favour working parents over families where one parent is a sahp, and it would have been better to have left CB intact.

CB could be spent on childcare by working families anyway. And they would have had this in addition to the voucher scheme.

I think it would be nice if, for once, they would consider those of us with older children for a change. Many of us are in a state of panic about how we are going to afford to support our children through university. I would prefer it if they invested some money in helping with this, tbh.

So this is not means tested which means people can be on 50 grand each, still getting their child benefit and now get an extra 2k a year back now from this too
yet people with one earner on 60k, so an overall household income much less, and paying more tax too, will be getting nothing
this is a load of rubbish to me, how is it a new scheme to help families when families with a stay at home parent seem to be penalised

What's happened to cb?

I want to know why they are taking away an easily implemented and simple child benefit system and replacing it with ever more complicated systems of tax breaks and clawing back of benefits etc.

Yes, it is slightly unfair that there are people earning £££ and receiving child benefits, but I would like to know if this increase in bureaucracy will actually save the country money.

It would be far fairer to leave the CB system as it is. I don't use childcare so the tax break is useless to me.

Is this being announced today? Fun! What's the betting that it's another way to screw families over.

crochetcircle bet it will go to whomever claims the child benefit

LexyMa that's what I thought.

So breakfast clus, afterscool clubs and school holiday schemes wouldn't be covered.

If it is for children under 5 that it is another cut in my view, as a parent of school age children grrrrrrrr

Why is it only for working women? This is the 21st century, there are quite a few men involved in childcare and families these days!!! Bloody Tories!

Depends if you have a baby and a teenager you could use the vouchers to cover all of the baby and none of the teen. I'm guessing that can't happen under the "new scheme"

Until the details are announced we won't know what they are really proposing/going to do. Will it be any better than the childcare voucher scheme? Will it be available for everyone regardless of the form of childcare they use (childcare vouchers in England can only be used for Registered forms of childcare)? As ever with these things, until all the fine print has been read we will not really know if it is a good thing, or a bad thing.