To ask how many of you know about the Child Benefit Charge?

[Ballstothisdotcom]

I had to repay over £6k a couple of years ago. Had to get out a loan to do it. The children were mine and not my husbands and I had always claimed as a single parent so just didn’t stop.

Have just read daily mail sad face story about this happening to another family.

My sister and her husband have always claimed it. They have never had it questioned. I just wonder if HMRC are blanket mail sending and hoping people will be honest.

I genuinely had no idea about it until we got the letter. It also seems grossly unfair that two people can earn £49999 per year but if one person goes over it you have to repay it. In our case it was my husband who went over the threshold just slightly so we had to pay back from the day we moved in together.

Any one else?

I did thecatsmother

Gits...

If you're working it's fine as you will pay NI. If you arent working then the NI credits stop once your youngest child turns 12

oh ok, thanks!

As dementedpixie says, you don't get any NICs if you are non working after your child turns 12.

rufus Gits is the very polite and sanitised version of what I thought when I found out. It was brought out very quietly indeed that one.

I was just going to say, I have gone over the threshold since increasing my PT hours to FT last year, but once I'd put all the salary sacrifice and gift aid donations into self assessment it put me back under and I actually got a small refund.

I love how people seem to think having a SAHP is a right not a luxury and they're some how disadvantaged by the £50k rule

In our house we have one parent not working due to illness, also entitled to no other benefits for this illness. It’s not always a choice to not work.

It is unfair and I think that it should have remained a universal benefit.

We claim it and then pay it back via Self Assessment. We do Self Assessment anyway and it adds about 2 extra minutes to fill it into the tax return. I don't trust their record keeping. And if I am out of work for whatever reason I don't want any state pension messed up (if a state pension even exists by the time I could claim it).

It was very widely publicised and discussed in the media at the time, including the unfairness of it. That a household income of £30k can claim it if the income is split across two earners, but a single earner of £60k can't claim it. And the £60k earner will be paying more tax than the two £40k earners.

No campaign will reverse this. It's set in stone now. The time for campaigning was back when Osborne brought it in.

I meant to say a household income of £60k not £30k. So two £30k earners = household income £60k

Another correction:

the two £30k earners not £40k earners. Got fat fingers tonight

Wow i’ve just found out I could’ve passed on my national insurance Contributions from CB to my mum 😫
Grandparent credits

You can also transfer National Insurance credits to someone else in your family, such as a:

sibling
grandparent, or
other direct family member

A few posters here worried about NI. You don’t actually need to receive the monetary benefit to be “in” the scheme as long as you keep them informed of any changes in circumstance. If you’re a SAHM with a partner earning more then £50k and don’t want to file, you can ring and opt out of payments but keep them updated if you have any more kids. Also important for anyone who takes a career break to have kids but isn’t part of any maternity pay scheme.

I had a colleague who was actively avoiding promotion because it would take her into higher rate tax and lose her her CB, so she felt that what would left after that wasn't enough to justify the extra responsibility and hassle.

Demented Pixie, they admitted it when drunk, not married and have not admitted the parents are together as a couple at the same address.

For 2 children, child benefit is about 1700/yr. You "lose" it on a sliding scale from £50k to £60K, so it's hard to see how you would be worse off being paid say £2000 more and losing a few hundred, even after tax.
I do agree about the unfairness but you don't need to completely opt out until over £60k.

Sorry I'm confused.
Also never heard of this!
Is this right...
If you earn over £50k you cant get child benefit?
But if you both earn under £50k you can?
What if DH earns over but I earn under £50k? 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

You can get child benefit however much you earn. However if there is a higher earner in the household earning over £50k then some may need to be paid back. Between £50-£60k a proportion gets paid back and once they earn £60k it would all get paid back

£49999 is NOT a substantial combined income if you live in London!

I thought the whole POINT of CB was that it was supposed to be for the mother (?)

And universal...?

Think its 10% paid back for each £1000 over £50k so if you get £53000 then you pay back 30% of CB

Thanks for the clarification @dementedpixie

It's not only for the mother. If there was a sahd or the male partner was the lower earner then they should make the claim for CB to protect their NI contributions. It is universal as such but higher earners may have to pay some or all of it back

It’s for the child not the mother so any parent can claim it. The person in the household earning more than £50k is the one that needs to pay it back.

I thought the whole POINT of CB was that it was supposed to be for the mother

Well that was my objection to doing away with it because it is generally paid to the mother, and maybe the only personal money she receives if she lives with an abusive partner even if he is earning over £60K.

It's not for the child (I knew some people growing up who were handed the child benefit as picket money/ allowance - obviously families can do as they like with it, but that was never the intention).

It was originally intended to alleviate child poverty (but that includes paying rent/ bills) and paid to the mother after a major parliamentary protest because of financial abuse - plenty of men in the 1940s, as today, leaving their wives and children short while they drank, gambled or otherwise spent the family income. It was brought in on the raft of social changes which included the NHS.

Obviously the original intentions have gone to pot now.

I read in 'Invisible Women' that CB was given by a tax deduction in the father's salary in the most part (p256-7.

It only became claimable by the mother as a stand alone benefit in 1977. Trends showed that purchases of women's and children's clothing increased as a result.