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?

My husband committed the ‘crime’ but the children are mine.

I got the loan out and repaid it as I didn’t want him to have to pay £6k for children that are not his.

Luckily we were had to go back 3 years. We didn’t live together prior to that and with his own dc he hadn’t met the threshold so it didnt count.

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.

But your tax code wouldn’t necessarily change. DH and I have the same tax code... I earn under £12k, he earns over £60k our codes are both 1250L.

I've only ever had letters when the amounts change.
The amounts change every year I think... the new amounts are covered in the budget each year.

The tories introduced this years ago.

It was a showboating exercise and given that child benefit was a great example of a universal benefit administered well, they had no reason to do it. It saved peanuts.

And why hasnt it gone up in the last 5(?) years??

@Fralla I don’t know about the issue of repayment but be warned that if your ex DH is claiming the CB it could have implications for school admissions. Mot schools use the payment of CB to a particular address as a criterion to qualify for a catchment area, and if his address is out of catchment and someone checks then you may have a problem.

Mot schools use the payment of CB to a particular address as a criterion to qualify for a catchment area, and if his address is out of catchment and someone checks then you may have a problem.

Crikey, really? I’ve got everything else registered to my address; doctors, current schools, dentist etc. But then they base residence on where cab is claimed, which is something not everyone is entitled to? That’s bat shit. How was I meant to know this??

Maybe but a few hours doing a tax return....

Unless you have very complicated affairs it shouldn’t take that long. I did DHs in about half an hour! You just need to know ALL income and the final Taxable pay amount from your P60, any pension contributions you make from your net pay (although most people pay pension contributions from gross pay so already taken out before you get the taxable amount), any charitable donations made (most of our are direct debits so easy to add up, the amount of CB received (again, easy to add up) put the figures in the boxes on the easy to understand online form and it’s done. There are other figures for other circumstances but these are all easy to find so long as you are sensible and keep your payslips and bank statements (all our slips and statements are online so impossible to lose).

Mot schools use the payment of CB to a particular address as a criterion to qualify for a catchment area,

I’ve never asked for evidence of child benefit for admissions. We prefer council tax bills.

We didn't claim for our second child due to the new system coming in, and have since found out about the issue of the child benefit being linked to them getting national insurance number at 16. They will still get an NI number at 16 but it will not be automatic. Apparently it is worth applying to get a letter and then cancelling. We had a panic at start of primary when council asked for CB letter as proof of child but we didn't have it as never applied. It wasn't an issue as we then just had to send off the full birth certificate. I don't think it it the CB that is used to get the school place, but it is used as proof of the child being who you say they are, apparently the council are not allowed to ask for birth certificates for some reason!

Never earned enough for it to be a problem but I did see that company cars and other benefits are also taken into account when calculating the £50K.

If you claim any benefit, you are responsible if your income changes to check you are still entitled.

@Fralla please don’t panic - it sounds like you could easily prove that your address is your children’s primary residence but the discrepancy could cause an unnecessary headache.

@BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou Perhaps it varies by LA but it’s the norm in much of the country. Hertfordshire uses receipt of CB as a tie-breaker to distinguish between parents who disagree on their preferred school: the parent who receives CB gets priority.

@Hmmmm2018 councils can’t ask for the long BC as it includes info about the parents which could be used to discrimnate. They can ask for the short version, however.

Yep as we had no CB and the application had to be in in 2 days time, the council said something along the lines of the long birth certificate counts as the same ID as the CB but they are not allowed to ask for it but I could send it in in place of CB if I was happy with that! Keep meaning to apply and then cancel the CB so I don't have any faff when it comes to secondary applications!!

The whole company car thing baffles me though. I thought the whole point of a company car was that it helped you and saved you money and you weren’t paying for it in any way but it wasn’t part of a salary. It seems they may actually be a hinderance now if they make you lose your child benefit?

Why is everyone saying it's a pain in the bum to pay it back? I went over for the first time this year and paid a small amount back and they asked if I wanted my tax code to change for 2020/21 to take it as source. Seemed quite straightforward?

Have I missed something?

Yes I was aware of this.

We continues to claim to see where I would come out on the scale and replayed what I owed when filing my tax return this year.

When you apply for child benefit it makes it very clear.

I do completely agree its unfair that its not on household income though as this stings us.

@Helloitsmemargaret because it isn’t usually done through PAYE and you have to do a full tax return, which is a PITA unless you are doing one anyway.

The charge for salaries between 50-60k is still lower than the child benefit so you’re still better off than not claiming at all. The reason you had to pay it off in one chunk is because you/your DH didn’t declare it. That’s your fault as the rules are very clearZ

Helloitsmemargaret thankfully we are not quite over the threshold so it doesn’t apply yet but it’s a pain to pay it back for a variety of reasons:-

The tax return itself - may be quick and easy if you are an organised person. If you are disorganised, find these things confusing, or are paid in various different ways such as freelance work, some paid gross, some net, then it can be awful. You may not get payslips so need to be the kind of person who keeps detailed, clear records and doesn’t lose things.

Need a separate account to put the money in and not sure how much to save so you have to save more than you need which might make you struggle financially.

Often the mother receives the benefit but the father is the higher earned. So she needs access to his payslips etc to ensure it is claimed correctly or needs to make sure he contacts the tax people / files a tax return. Some fathers may be too disorganised / arrogant / abusive to do this.

I’m sure there are other reasons.

@ThanksItHasPockets but I think that was my point, I did a tax return (online so pretty easy and quick) but I understood it that it would be taken through PAYE next year so I wouldn't need to do one again?

@DisorganisedOrganiser so being a single parent is a benefit then! I may be penalised for not having a dual income but I have to be bloody organised and I have access to my own payslips (which my work very helpfully puts on an online portal).

I think Ive got this correct....

I think SAHM’s need to claim - even if they get £0 as it keeps up their stamp.

Important when you get to pension time..... ( even if that seems years off) Gaps in ones National Insurance can cause problems later.

@Hmmmm2018 we didn't apply for CB for our second child either (born 2015) as I earned over £60k. I had no idea until I read this thread that this meant he wouldn't automatically get an NI number. Did you apply to get the letter and cancel for your second DC in the end?

Yes we know about it and notified them as soon as we knew we would be slightly over. We stopped claiming CB in the end because no matter how much we paid back the money requested kept getting out of hand. We haven’t received it since March last year, paid yet another £400 in November and they are still claiming we owe more tax. Don’t know why they can’t do it like tax credits and only pay what you are entitled to rather than this tax charge nonsense.

Yes we knew about it and had to repay a small amount of child benefit for only one year. I think it was pretty well publicised at the time it was brought in but no so much any more. Agree with you that it's grossly unfair the way it is based on one person's income. Very odd way of doing it when all other means tested benefits are based on household income which is much fairer.