Can someone explain child benefit taper?

[Missinsth]

I earn 52k with comission which May or May not tip me over 60k so not sure if I should apply for child benefit?

I've read about a 'taper' level of 80k but no idea what that is. I definitely won't earn above 80k

Can someone explain

I'm in the same boat (single parent 60k base but with commission on top - which has been crap recently) . I haven't claimed it for the last 3/4 years. I don't want to receive some then have to pay it back again which is what made me stop it in the first place.. You never know in advance how much you'll earn do you?!

So how it works currently is you lose 10% of the CB for every £1k you earn between £50k and £60k. The guess is you will lose 5% pet 1k between £60 and £80k.

So if you ate just over, its definitely worth it.

And how do they get that money back from you? Is it a big bill at the end of the year?

Yes so difficult to know what to do

The taper is irritating. Why would anyone who doesn’t need to want to sign up for an annual tax return? And then pay more tax next year because none of it is calculated in real time.

everything about child benefit policy is badly designed.

So with the new budget you should definitely sign up for child benefit. You can even do it now and potentially get some backdated for the current tax year. With today’s announcement , tapering means that for every £ you earn between 60k and 80k, you will be liable to give some child benefit back via doing a tax return. At 80k someone would end up paying it all back so not worth claiming in the first place. It used to be between 50k to 60k , so until now, someone at 60k would have to pay it all back. Now they’ve raised the levels a bit, so more people will be able to claim and will be able to keep more of the benefit .

Thanks for the info, am I right jn thinking I'd have to fill in a tax return? It's not going to be clarified through PAYE like student loan stuff? Seems like a lot of admin but I may not hit 60k so wouldn't want to miss out

Yes you have to fill in a tax return. I've just had to pay back last year's child benefit in full as I didn't know I would be over the 60k cap.

I think if you submit the return before 31 December then you can have what you owe paid back through a reduction in your personal allowance the following year. If you submit in January you have to pay back the whole amount in full.