Tax Free Childcare

[TheDeuteragonist]

I opened my account last year but it's only now I've been able to access it. I've had numerous problems logging in through the Gateway and then problems with paying in any money at all.

Eventually in, linked with DDs nursery, paid in £400 and sent the payment to the nursery...

And it's been declined due to their not being enough funds in the account...

What? I paid in the money and chose the amount. It clearly says that £400 Is available in the account!!

I don't have time to spend hours on the phone to HMRC today sorting this out. So I've withdrawn the money, which is now going to take 3 to 5 days to hit my account. Argh.

AIBU to think that the government have made this scheme impossible intentionally to discourage people from using it? Or am I just jaded?

No, they just said they would do it as a political vote winner and didn’t think it through or plan how it would work. Same with 30 hours childcare - although in that case they actually ignored their own consultation that said there would be serious problems.

Did they top up your 400? You should add an amount and then they add 200%. So when you add 400, then the new amount should then be 480 in your balance. This happened to me and it was next I needed to reconfirm eligibility (which makes sense you might have to do because you signed up so long ago, normally you do it every 3 months). You should be able to do it through your account on that main page.

Sadly the govts IT systems are shit. HMRC in general is horrible if you’ve ever had to do a tax self assessment and the Home Office is a nightmare too.

20% not 200%! Wouldn’t that be nice though?!

It’s completely crap! It took me 7 months to open my account due to an error they were aware of but were unable to fix.

I’ve not had any issues with it personally. I add funds, but don’t set it up to transfer to childcare provider for 3 working days, because I find it takes two to clear so to speak!

I setup my account about 2 months ago, I haven't had any issues with it yet, although it does seem to take an age to process money into and out of it.

If you have just done this is it possible the easter bank holidays have caused any delays in processing the money from your bank account?

I use the tax free childcare account, it takes a few days for the money to clear into the account so you can't make payments straight away. It says that the money is available on your balance straight away though which is confusing!

Money you pay in seems to take a very long time to clear, but I get an email to say when the payment has gone in. So your balance may have included uncleared funds? I've had some issues but it's worth persevering

I set up my account last year and it seems to work ok. I would work with the issues rather than not have the £2000 top ups!

The problems I have had:

• I set up a regular monthly payment to the nursery and which didn’t leave my TFC account due to a glitch in the system. I complained to HMRC and they said they would compensate me for any late payment fees the nursery issued.

• it’s not clear to see how much you have to pay in and when to get the maximum top up, so I have to keep track and work it out manually. The figures showing on their system are usually wrong.

Other than the issues above it seems ok. I can login fine, the balance is correct (though payments sometimes take a couple of days to clear), the nursery receive the manual payments I send, I get the top-ups and the reconfirmation is straightforward.

The money you paid in hadn't cleared. Make sure there's a few days between paying it in and sending it out.
I've had no problems and think it's great. It's a faff but you know what it's effectively a 20% tax refund on what I pay in so I'm prepared to accept the system isn't amazing.
Give it another shot and see how you get on.

I have been using the service for a while.
However everytime i come to make a payment i used to struggle to calculate how much i needed to pay in and how much the government would top it up by.

I came across this tax free childcare calculator recently which is really good if anyone is struggling?

taxfreechildcarecalculator.com

Hi Everyone,

need some help on the Government free tax childcare account. what does it mean by cleared funds?
i paid in £564 and the government topped up £141 and it now says cleared funds of £705. i dont understand what this means. i am new to this

has the money been withdrawn by the nursery, as i haven't any complaints about not receiving their money.

thanks