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?

When it happened we earner well under the threshold like £25k so it didn’t really register on our radar.
Slowly over the years DH wage increases and combined with them getting a company car which counts we realised we were over the amount even though is actual wage wasn’t.

It’s well publicised and you can only claim child benefit in one name, also this has been done to death so YABU.

£1500 council tax a month - crikey what band is that?

@babysnowman you aren't entitled when you earn over 60k in the tax yr and a reduced amount when 50-60k so you stop claiming at that point.

You only pay back if you claimed while earning over 50k. The benefit before earning 50k is fine.

@Sally872 Phew! Thanks 😊

@Ghostontoast she said "rent and council tax" is £1500 a month. Had to read that twice myself

I agree that the under £49999 rule is bizarre versus £99999 as a couple and think the obvious way forward is to lower to total household income of lower than £49999. That is still a substantial income and would be far clearer.

I knew about it when it came in and I didn’t have a baby then- it was all over the news! It was also all over the application paperwork when we applied last year when our daughter was born.

I think some people must stuck their heads in the sand.

£6000 is a lot of child benefit to have to repay.

For 2 children it would take 3 and a half years to receive that much benefit.

For 3 children, nearly 3 years.

It's often best not to stop claiming, but the for the higher earner to fill in a tax return (which really isn't very onerous nowadays - if they're just employed, most of it will be pre-filled from their P60).
The person in receipt of the child benefit will be automatically credited with full National Insurance credits for each year until their child turns 12, so if they are not working, or earning below a certain amount, it's worth having claimed the child benefit for that.
As the reclaim is tapered, if the higher earner is earning below £60k, or can reduce their pay to that with any salary sacrifice scheme, you may get to keep some of it.

It seems bananas that you could have two people on 99k each who would get it but a household on 101k in total wouldn't get it.

My husband's income is circa 125k so we aren't entitled to it- I absolutely don't feel like we ought to be entitled to it, but I do think the system is weird.

It is deeply unfair because the couple with one earning over 50k also pays more tax. They get hit twice. So a couple where one earns 75k and one earns 25k has a much higher tax bill and has a lover net income than a couple earning £49,999 each.
That’s before the child benefit is taken off.

I knew but we never claimed it so that’s not particularly helpful.

It was really well publicised at the time - a lot of articles about how it was effectively a tax on SAHP families (and single parents with higher incomes).

There was a thread the other day about how a single mum earning six figures had gone part time on the basis that the part time salary meant she got CB and childcare as well as not paying the highest rate of tax and therefore was almost as well off and getting to spend more time with her DC. The OP on that wanted to know if this was tax dodging/benefit scrounging....

I thought everyone knew. It was everywhere when it happened. Endless newspaper articles, all over all the parenting forums and it was debated constantly. A lot of journalists were affected apparently which is why it was talked about so much.......

@lanthanum gives really good advice re national insurance entitlement. While I think the actual change was publicised fairly well, I don't think there was nearly enough publicity around the potential downsides of opting out entirely.

We used to claim it and then pay it back. Eventually we stopped though.

Shit. I didn't know this. Just saw on a different thread about getting a huge charge.

My dh earns over £50,000 how come gov or Hmrc have notified us?

The DM case is a little more than just being penalised for earning over £50k. This chap earned less than £50k but had a company car which is seen as a benefit in kind and pushed him over the limit. Whilst the £50k element has been clear, the fact you could earn less than £50k but other benefits pushes you over the limit isn't as well known (it may have been advertised well back when the change came in but I didn't have kids then so paid no attention!)

At least with that income (even halved) it's possible to take put loans an dpay it pay affordably. People on UC who suddenly find put there was a tax credits overpayment years ago just find out when there's next to no money gone in or a DOE order takes several hundred quid out of their salary.

The Times is campaigning for changes to Child Benefit, since it now impacts many more families than originally envisaged, plus leads to situations where HMRC are claiming thousands from families who were unaware.

The other difficulty is that those that decide not to claim at all, from the outset, then risk having their child having no National Insurance number in due course, because the system that triggers NI generation is linked to child benefit being claimed.

It is a farcical situation that a family can be earning close to £100,000, with no impact on child benefit, but one individual earns above £50,000 and the entitlement falls away.

If there is a lower earner/non earner then they can can claim it but opt out of payment. This protects the lower earners NI credits towards their state pension. Claiming for each child (whether you take the money or not) also ensures they automatically get their NI number when they turn 16

It’s certainly not fair! When the rule first came in I wasn’t working but DH was slightly over the threshold so I claimed and and DH had to start doing self assessments and pay some back. Last year I stopped claiming as DH has gone over 60k. I thought it was very well publicised to be honest.

It is horribly unfair though! DH and I have a joint income below £80k (I don’t pay tax) and he pays more tax on his own than if we earned £40k each PLUS I can’t get child benefit! All these things should be based on household income!

There are downsides to being taxed as a couple. We live in Germany and I lose 50% of my fairly ordinary wage because DH and I are taxed as a couple. I don't mean I'm a MN "higher rate tax payer" who actually only pays higher rate tax on the bit of their salary over £50,000, I mean I earn about 29k and get about 16k of that ...

It seems fairer in some ways but it has the practical, real world impact of keeping a lot of married women who've taken time out with children from returning to work - it compounds the problems that exist in the UK to make it seem even less worth while.

Just got caught for this, have paid back £3k so far, about another £3k to go..., HMRC sent me a letter