feeling that tax credits are totally biased towards working mums?

[Dragonhart]

I am a SAHM and I get the min working tax credit as my DH earns just over the min for getting more help.

I was talking to my friend yesterday who works 4 days a week as a teacher (their combined salaries are just below the top of the band of getting any money) and I was saying what I got now we have two children. I get just over £40 plus about £40 baby element. When dd is 1 and I have two under 3 I will get £40.

She told me that she gets about £160 a months towards childcare in vouchers on her and her husbands paypacket (not sure if this is classed as tax credit?) and £75 permonth for her only ds in tax credits.

I am not making a coment about whether or not people choose to work as I stongly believe that everyone should have a choice to do what is right for them.

I just think that I should be supported in the same way as working mums. Surely I am my childrens 'childcare'?

yellowrose - me, me me!!! I will admit to getting bored at home with my kids sometimes. I can't play with them, I hate painting with them , I get stressed out when kids are in their natural habitat (ie all their toys strewn around them). I do all that from time to time because I think I should. I am very happy to read to them endlessly, take them out for walks, visits to museums, parks, library, swimming, we talk endlessly about every subject under the sun etc. So when I'm at home with them I make sure that we get out of the house at least once everyday. But that means that I simply couldn't cope with being broke and a SAHM which is what would happen if I didn't work.

I would loooove the choice to stay at home and live life the way I want. But if the choice was to be at home, broke and miserable, I'd run a mile.

There you are ...is that honest enough?

right, thanks BossyKate - i will look into it.

Chocolate Gril, I'm not having a go at all, but I don't think any mothers existance is piontless, however much they faff around having their hair and nails done.

CF - I didn't mean to imply their role as mothers was pointless, just the rest of their lives didn't seem to have much of a pattern to it. I guess I don't always express myself very well .

Xenia for once I agree 100% with one of your statements so feel compelled to say so!

You are so right about the Mother's with rich husbands who call themselves SAHM's who have Nannies & Housekeepers...I have first hand experience with a lot of those Women & I wouldn't change my life for theirs for a million a year!

Yes, I agree.

On the childcare vouchers thing which I won't qualify for as I earn too much for any of these credits but is interesting what is the moung you can claim? Presumably it wouldn't be 3 full time nursery places in central London for 3 under 5s. Is it some kind of pathetic 10% of the likely charge or is it all of it?

I know a couple of women with male au-pairs & they're not around for their pleasure that's for sure, one Mum (of 3 boys under 7) said to me...

..."Sometimes it's more work having X around as he's still a kid himself!"

Male au-pairs are a great thing for families with boys who don't see a lot of their father & we need more of them...Many children don't spend more than a few hours in male company nowadays with fathers who leave the house before they rise & come home after bedtime.

anyone can have childcare vouchers - there is no earnings limit for them.

Xenia,
childcare vouchers are not means tested. Everyone who has an employer who is willing to provide them can use them for approved childcare. A nanny has to be approved for a cost of £96 per year. Nestor used to do the approving, but I think there are more approvers now.

You could ask Jura over on the nanny threads. She knows more about them than I do.

Chocolate Girl, I'm actually really of that type of SAHM

ChocolateFace, believe me I've yet to meet a happy SAHM of that type!

Xenia you would qualify for childcare vouchers if your company chose to provide them. If you are self employed it is not an option as far as I know, unless you subscribed to the service under your company name I guess?. We earn too much for the tax credits so I only get (or use - it is not really get as it is still your money) childcare vouchers as my company choose to offer them as part of their family friendly policy. All it means is they use a third party company to do the admin, you sign up and simply divert a maximum of £55 a week (most people do the max as this is unlikely to cover anywhere near all your childcare costs) of your salary straight to this company from your employer before you are taxed on it or paid it by your employer. You then use the third party company's website to send this money to your registered childcare provider's (i.e nursery, childminder or nanny) bank account as part payment of your fees (or you can get paper vouchers I think). Anyone whose company offers them can use them. My dp's company do not (there is a small overhead to employ the administrators I guess) so he gets nothing towards childcare costs. apart from that we get child benefit like every parent in the country independent of income - eg my B/SIL's who are both QCs still get the £18 a week per child or whatever it is.

Okay, that's good. So working families tax credit or whatever that is not available to people earning over £55k or whatever is different from an employer providing childcare vouchers. I am self employed and don't have a company - a sole trader. So there isn't a separate legal entity that could make this benefit in kind as it were available. I suspect that means I'm not covered just as say my ex husband teaching the piano privately paid per hour might not be either or someone who goes out on a self employed basis cleaning. it's certainly worth my checking.

God that seems even less fair if only some employers offer them and only some nursaries accept them.

It's interesting because there seem to be two things - this is a page on HMRC site about when you're better of taking employer provided vouchers and when you're better taking the chilcare element in tax credit system - which suggested you cannot have both (although some people like me don't get into the tax credit system as they earn too much so that is not then an issue - although I think I don't get employer vouchers anyway as I don't have an employer either a big onr or my own limited company that employs me. I think I get none of any of this except child benefit.

www.hmrc.gov.uk/childcare/interaction-tc-cv.htm

Xenia, I don't mean to be rude, but how do you earn so much money when you're always on MN? You must be ultra efficient.

My friend def gets both so she will prob end up having to pay it back, even though she has rung up several times about it.

It is a total farce imo. I dont think anyone on here has been happy so far?

Reading those HMRC examples of John on £10,000 a year and his wife on £15,00 and their childcare is £100 a week stuff it's like cloud cuckoo land. The £55 a week they allow on the vouchers they then pretend in their examples is paying half the people's childcare. Instead you'd be luck to pay that for a day particularly if you have three under 5s. And the complexity of the examples about when you claim the childcare element of tax credit and when it's best to get the employer voucher (and salary sacrifice) is as if written for some kind of test to show to aliens to show how complex Governments choose to make things.

Thankful I qualify for none of it. They coudl instead have said we will lower tax but you pay your own childcare costs or they say free childcare provision for all or they say 100% of whatever you pay for childcare cost is tax dedcutible but no, they think up complexity on complexity.

I think all childcare providers have to accept them but only some companies use the scheme - there is a cost according to my dp's company - they have to pay the third parties who administer them (whether a comp-anies own payroll dept could do it with no cost I don't know?). I don't see why self employed people trading as a company shouldn't be able to offer themeselves this chunk of untaxed money under the conditions - maybe the cost is prohibitive? I have never understood the equation about when you should and shouldnt use them - all I know is if you are a 40% tax payer it is always worth it - I think it can effect your mat pay if you are not. It is all so bloody comlex and open to abuse - that is what annoys me. Eg the number of people I know off who live with their partner which takes their family income over the 58K limit for the tax vouchers/free money thing but claim it as single women is despicable. I also know of a family who live in a half million pound house, have just built a conservatory and bought 2 new cars, yet they claim a couple of £1000 in tax vouchers for their kids because one is self employed and claims he only earns 25K per year.

Going back to the original "seems the more you earn the more you get given" rubbish that inscenced me so it also seems to me, in a lot of cases, that the less you earn the more you try and cheat the system.

If your nanny or childminder or nursery will accept them, do they then have to go to an organisation and have them turned into cash. Or can they be paid straight into a bank?

As I understand it my vouchers are put into an electronic account I have with the supplier when I am paid my salary. And then I transfer them to my childcare providers (nursery and childminder) and it goes directly into their bank account.

My nursery certainly get it as elctronic cash into their company account from the third party company that administers the scheme - I think they then do something on behalf of my company allowing them to claim something back from the government - or explain my non-payment of tax for that portion.

I think some nurseries only accept cheques etc and in that case you give them paper vouchers which they can then convert into cash somehow. My account lets me choose electronic or paper - everyone does it electronically that I know (maybe some childminders or nanny's need vouchers?)

I do think it is a bit starnge how this si on a per individual basis - i.e both the mother and father can not pay tax on this bit, whereas the tax credit money things are per family.

orm - thanks for that ! i see your point, i guess i am one of the lucky ones then, stay at home out of OUR choice (dh and I) but we are defo. not broke, still manage to go on holiday, eat decent food, live in a nice neighbourhoud in a beautiful place, but don't have as much money as when i worked because i earned more than dh. i love spending time with ds, which is the main reason i stay home. i have my "i am so fed up" days, but that is when dh steps in to look after ds

i still think it is a disgrace that a mum/dad who is deparate to stay at home to look after her/his baby/child has to be forced back into the office, due to lack of support from the Govt. or face starvation. Absurd in an industrilaised, 1st world country like ours.

Barbamama - DH is self employed and does just that. The nursery receives two payments for DS - one from DH's company account and the remainder from our personal account. Nursery is fine with that. So in our case it is not managed by a 3rd party so no admin costs.

so there you go Xenia, it is possible. Does he just explain that he is not paying tax on £55 of his income when he comes to do his tax as it is for a childcare voucher scheme?