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?

We missed this as we were well under when we claimed for our first, for us it was the Company car which pushed us over and we didn't realise, 6k to pay back and our circumstances are very different financially now and this makes life hard. We received no letters through about it and did not realise the car took us over the threshold.

I think it’s a pretty outdated benefit in any case. All benefits should be means tested including this and winter fuel allowance.

This has been the case for a really long time. People really need to be up to date with benefits and taxes.

What is really unfair is two people can each earn £49,999 and will receive CB but if one parent works and earns £50,000 then nada.

I received it for a time, I'm a sahm, so that my NI would be covered and then DH paid it back.

A friend told me she stopped claiming, then it was hassle to start claiming again.

We claim then DH pays it back.

I knew about the cap from the news but we're never informed bu CB.

I thought if a woman wasn't working but claiming CB it meant she'd still be eligible for state pension, or is that something I imagined or is very out of date?

I’m a single mum and can’t claim child benefit as I am over the threshold. Seems very unfair when a couple could earn £98k and get it. I have known about it from the start.

When I first started claiming in 2002 the 50K rule didn't exist either. It came into effect in 2013, that's when I stopped claiming. I don't know whether the CB office would have ever contacted me directly but it was well publicised in the media at the time which was why I contacted them to tell them I didn't think I was entitled anymore and they stopped my benefit straight away.
I presumed it would be my responsibility to inform them, not to wait for them to contact me.

You would have to be wilfully ignorant not to know about this. It was massively well publicised when the change came in and there were endless debates about it.

I don’t get CB but I’m still covered for the NI bit - or what ever it may be called - I’m guessing Im registered with both my children but opted out of getting the money.
When my daughter turned 16 I received a letter asking me if she was staying in FT education and I would still receive £0 ...I confirmed ..& received another confirming that I would receive £0 - that was a waste of money in admin!!

I didn’t know that once you earned over £60k you are no longer eligible and had to pay 5k back, we took a loan out. Don’t feel rich enough to not claim it we can’t afford abroad holidays or fancy cars. My husband earns just over £60k I’m a SAHM we have two kids we can claim but two working parents earring £59k each can claim it’s bonkers.

but doesn't the annual letter telling you how much CB you're going to get mention the high income issue? I thought it did.

Mine did...

I never receive any communication about the child benefit

When I was claiming I got a letter every year telling me what my 4 weekly payment would be for the next year. This mentioned the tax implications.

It didn't apply to me when the changes occurred and although I agree it was well publicised at the time, I would be very hard pressed to recall now what the thresholds were (or would have until I read this thread). If my income were to change, it wouldn't occur to me to inform the child benefit office and tbh I would have assumed that they would contact me, since my tax code would change. They contact you when your child turns 16, or 18, or whatever it is. Pretty crap to only get in touch when a substantial sum is owed, since they clearly have access to that information at all times. I voted YANBU but I see I'm in a minority. You are obviously all much more on the ball than I am!

Well obviously I am ‘wilfully ignorant’ then. I either didn’t know or once knew and then forgot about it. Either way the end result of not knowing is the same.

I've never had an 'annual letter'. I've only ever had letters when the amounts change. Weird how different everyone's experience is.

Well although I knew about this as dc born in 2013 after it came in I immediately didn't claim because dh earned too much to qualify but only learning on this thread about things like dc may not get an NI number. We've never claimed it and dc now nearly 7!

This took off was cooking dinner!

Not that I want to sell my own family up the river but it seems that not everyone is receiving ‘the letter’. My sister has knowingly been paid it since the beginning of time and not had the ‘letter’ so is still getting away with it.

I wonder what would have happened if I had ignored the letter.
We were basically asked to justify why we shouldn’t pay the fine. I wrote a long letter explaining as the kids were mine I didn’t realise my partners wages were taken into consideration. And I didn’t get the fine.
I’ve received no correspondence about my child benefit since original letter and a confirmation about moving house. Nothing was on the address change letter about the charge. First child born in 2001.

Even I knew this and I am the least knowledgeable person about the benefits system EVER.

I've never had letters about CB either. CTC -yes. But not CB. Not that it matters. I'm unlikely to ever earn (or co-habit with someone who earns) over the threshold.

If you have a very long memory like me, you may remember that once upon a time the head of the household (usually, in those days, the husband) could claim additional personal allowance for each dependent child. Family allowance was also paid for second and subsequent children (which used to annoy me as the first!). Both were abolished and replaced by child benefit on the grounds that that was of more benefit to the poor and the rich would effectively repay it through higher rates of tax.

Fast forward a couple of generations and the child benefit was taken from the rich (I know there will be views as to whether a salary of £60k is or isn't riches) but, funnily enough, there was no compensatory reduction in income tax.

Never trust politicians of any hue.

I haven't rtft but I live abroad and even I know about this. However I understood it was important to claim it to keep NI payments up to date for the mother, even if it comes off later in tax.

My dh knew he’d go just over the threshold so he spoke to them and asked for it to be stopped. The next month it paid in. He rang them again. They said it would stop. The next month it paid in again. He rang them again. And emailed. It paid in again. And again. And again. Eventually we got a shitty letter telling us that he’d gone over the threshold and had claimed X amount that we weren’t entitled to and they’d be taking it back over the next three months. Hundreds of pounds, just like that. No apology for their own continuous fuck up or more time to pay. Fortunately we could pay it so it wasn’t too bad but it could have put someone else on their knees. They honestly couldn’t find their own arse with both hands. Absolute shower of fucking shit, the lot of them. No wonder people have to fill in their own tax returns now, they clearly can’t be trusted anymore.

I’ve said this before on these threads - you don’t have to claim the CB in order to get your NI contributions. There is a section on the form with a tick box that allows you to say you don’t want to claim the CB but do want to protect your State Pension.

It’s a lot easier to tick the box than faff about with tax returns!

Section on form here

I'm aware of it, I accidentally ended up over the 50k limit when I changed jobs twice in a year and got some back pay holiday pay, so I had to fill in a self assessment form (this was a massive pain in the arse) but I'd already cancelled my payments so fortunately it was only a tiny amount to repay.

@babysnowman if you have a significant pay increase part way through the year which would take your earnings over the 60k cut off where you aren't eligible for any of it anymore, you will have to pay back what you claimed from that tax year even if you were eligible for it at the time. For example, we began a tax year where my dh earned 48k so was eligible for the full amount but he moved jobs in the august. We notified and stopped claiming but the following April, had deductions taken via tax code for the amount we had legitimately claimed before he changed jobs. Which is annoying!