Sue Radford is pregnant....

[MadameFoner]

Just seen a post on Facebook...

You get partial child benefit between 50 and 60k so he could still earn more than 50k and them be getting some. They're also missing a trick if they don't arrange their finances to distribute the income equally between them. I don't know what they make with the TV stuff as well, and if it comes out as more than 60k each then obviously no CB at all, but if they both got under 60k then there would be at least some child benefit.

I don't actually care about them getting it, but I do care about the bullshitting. Even if they stopped as soon as it became means tested, that would still have been many thousands of pounds. They did also used to get tax credits too. Again no objection to that, but be clear about it.

Their YouTube channel has nearly 100,000 subscribers and they will be making a lot of money from that alone. I know people with fewer subscribers who could give up their day job and survive on YouTube income.

Yes they evidently have income other than the 50k from the bakery. It's just not as simple as saying they won't get CB because Noel earns 50k: the threshold for full withdrawal is higher than that and unless we know exactly how much they earn, it's not really possible to say whether they are CB eligible or not. If they were both on £49,999 they would get the full amount, and given that they're presumably self-employed that would be the sensible thing to aim for. But all we know is that they have in the past had very substantial sums from the state pot.

They’re not paying a nanny and earning less than £60k themselves. I don’t know why people keep persisting with the CB stuff

seasame Sue doesn’t work. That’s very clear. Do you not think there are people reporting them to DWP left right and centre? I bet they’ve been investigated numerous times. No way can she claim to be a full time employee of the bakery earning £49,999. Do you think they do all these tv and newspaper appearances for free?

They most likely no longer qualify for CB with the money they have earned through their C4 deal and now YouTube. YouTube can pay a fortune if you have enough subscribers and also hits on your videos, I’m imagining they don’t struggle with that.

They still suffocate the NHS and education system. His bakery isn’t Warburtons or Hovis, they don’t earn enough to send their 22 kids to private school and pay for private healthcare.

As explained above, they could be earning a few pence short of 100k combined and still be eligible for full child benefit. I don't know or care whether they are but if people are going to say they can't possibly be eligible now because X, let's at least be familiar with the law on CB entitlement first.

Actually they could arrange that financial situation very nicely if they used a bit of sense about it. Dividends from the company, pay the older ones their personal allowance for working at the bakery and then charge them for keep, statutory maternity pay for Sue every time she had another baby and claim it back from the state. That's what I would do if I were them.

seasame Sue doesn’t work. That’s very clear. Do you not think there are people reporting them to DWP left right and centre? I bet they’ve been investigated numerous times. No way can she claim to be a full time employee of the bakery earning £49,999. Do you think they do all these tv and newspaper appearances for free?

The £49,999 full time bakery employee thing is a strawman. Literally nobody said that. But they clearly don't have just that one source of income. It wouldn't be at all clear to us whether Sue was eg a director being paid dividend income. There is just no way you would be able to tell if that were the case from observing their social media. And you contradict yourself when you say Sue doesn't work but do we think they do all the TV appearances for free. Of course not, that IS her work!

They may of course not have engaged the services of an accountant at all, or done so and paid no attention to any of the suggestions about how best to arrange their business affairs to maximise their take home income. That's a possibility. But not one any of us are in a position to confirm.

@Passthecherrycoke
I don’t know why people keep persisting with the CB stuff
Well that will be because they said yesterday that they claim
£170 a week CB and nothing else.

Oh really? That's interesting. Realistically then this does mean that Sue is the one whose name the other income is in, if he earns 50k from the bakery. But that's only sensible. Basic tax planning.

You can’t “put” money In sues name. That’s illegal. She has to be able to demonstrate she earns it.

And you’re right- I did contradict myself by saying she doesn’t work- I simply meant it’s clear she doesn’t have a full time out of the house job in the bakery. Of course I imagine the media work is in her name- but she’ll be looking at tens of thousands for articles in the sun, closer etc. Without meaning to sound trite, a joint income of £100k isn’t high (still borderline to be able to afford the nanny IMO) and really doesn’t line up with amounts she’ll be getting for her media appearances

That’s not really tax planning by the way. It’s well known you can claim child benefit on 2 less than £50k incomes

However, if they’ve openly stated they claim CB yesterday its all moot. However I’ve googled and googled and can’t find anything about that.

What exactly do you mean by 'she has to be able to demonstrate she earns it' passthecherrycoke? Because it's perfectly legal for a person to, for example, receive income as a shareholder or director of a company without having to show they do a particular amount of work there.

In terms of the media work, I've no idea what the likes of The Sun pay for an article. Can you tell me what you're basing that on? The child benefit, if it is £170 a week, is over 9k a year untaxed. It would obviously be daft of them to turn down a gig paying them 10k after tax for the sake of that amount, but it's clearly enough money that it's worth at least trying to arrange your affairs so you can continue to claim it. And that's really all that can be said here, without making significant assumptions.

As for it being commonly known that you can claim CB on two sub 50k incomes, it evidently isn't that well known given some of the responses in this thread.

People are saying they believe they earn more than the 2 £50k incomes regardless of whether you could claim on them or not. I don’t recall anyone not understanding that it was possible to claim on 2 £50k incomes. It is a after all, a widely known criticism of the system.

Hmrc dont just accept the partners of self employed people claiming they also work for the company. That’s a common, very basic tactic and easily stamped out. Hmrc aren't totally passive. They like going after small business owners more than anyone else

Of course she could take a dividend from a ltd company but that’s besides the point if she still earns over the CB threshold isn’t it?

I’m basing my guesses on people I know who’ve received payment from such papers and fairly widely known info about how much can be earned from ie you tube clicks

As I say, I bet they’ve been Investigated loads of times. They’ll be sneaky clean or they would’ve been done by now. I’m sure of it

Just to be clear the sun don’t usually pay tens of thousands per story. I’m talking about the earnings they’d receive over a year

So what, it's their business, not ours.
Put your cats bum mouth away.

Yes, I expect they have been investigated. That doesn't mean they can't be earning a certain amount legitimately through the tax system.

As you admit yourself, Sue could take a dividend from the company. It would be beside the point if she or indeed he were over the threshold for child benefit, but it wouldn't be beside the point if they weren't. I mean, nobody is saying this is a totally fake PAYE situation, or anything that would bring down the wrath of HMRC upon them. There's no need for that.

Out of interest I’ve just checked and sue isn’t a director

So you’re saying that Noel takes less than £60k from the bakery and sue earns less than £60k from her media career. And not only that, but throughout the year they accept these earnings until which point they hit the £60k for media earnings and start rejecting appearances, features, advertising etc. What do you think they’re going to do at that point, shut it all down for the year so they can get their £10k CB? With the greatest of respect do you even think they’re smart enough to keep track of that? I doubt they employ a Ft accountant, just one to do their end of period accounts. By which time it’s too late to reduce earnings

I think it's a bit sad that from what I understand the older children are also turning themselves into baby machines. How about empowering your myriad children to have ambitions beyond popping out babies. Encourage your girls to be scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers. Just because you had a crappy childhood, got pregnant at fourteen and have found your mojo by having children doesn't mean your kids have to.

Not a director of the bakery or of any other business? What about shareholdings? It surprises me that you completely rule out the possibility of them getting and following some accounting advice. That's no more than supposition. Accounting isn't my profession, but I have found that sometimes the people who know they've no idea how to sort it on their own are the best at following advice!

In terms of the CB claim, I had a quick google and there are loads of newspaper articles reporting that they claim it, including several from yesterday, but none seem to cite a source. They all also say they support themselves mainly through the bakery. Reads like they're all regurgitating and slightly rewriting the same thing though.

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/sue-radford-mother-of-britains-largest-family-expecting-22nd-child-with-radfords-soon-able-to-fill-a4266471.html

news.sky.com/story/sue-radford-britains-biggest-family-is-expecting-baby-number-22-11841086

The child benefit thing also seems to have been discussed before the recent baby announcement too.

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/856879/Radford-family-UK-biggest-family-baby-Sue-Noel-Radford-benefits

But again no source. I guess it's also possible they said at some point that they did claim child benefit but have passed the threshold since then.

I certainly think they claimed HB in the early days

Accounting is my profession though

Cb not hb

No idea about HB. I think the point is though that even if we assume they were over the threshold and stopped claiming the instant the new rules came in, that's still an immense amount of money they have claimed (and this is before we consider things like statutory paternity pay and SMP or MA depending on which applies to Sue's circumstances). I don't myself have an issue with people who are eligible for CB and other money from the state pot claiming it, not at all. Claim it myself. But I do have an issue with hypocrisy and being critical of other claimants like you're better than them, especially when the sums involved are or would have been at the time more than some people who are entirely reliant on benefits receive.

I don’t anyone disputes they cost the taxpayer far in excess of most families, and I think the CB point was a valid argument about 10 years ago, but must surely be well outdated at this point

They can claim it if they earn over £60k and then pay it back via their tax return (this is what DH and I do)