To be pissed off about paying back child benefit

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I am in a sector that was awarded a pay rise this year - though our union is fighting for a higher one. The rise was from September but our school (yes, it's teaching) didn't pay it until November when we got months at once. HR always send us a pay statement at this time of year and I have just opened mine and seen I am now on approx £52k (been teaching 18 years and am head of a core subject in a large secondary school). I understand I now have to pay back some of my child benefit. This is a pisser as things are pretty tight and I'm a lone parent who gets no CM (ex is a total waste of space - I've gone through CMS). Also, I wasn't expecting it this year (I was on £49k last year and now I'm worried I've missed some sort of deadline for paying it back as technically I've been on this for 5-6 months, but only just realised.

I really haven't got the head space for this now and a quick Google has just brought confusion. As soon as you move forwards a bit in this shithole country you move backwards it seems. Any advice would be great!

But the point is, the system needs to look at total household income-a family warning over 90k as their total household income, should not be getting CB. Whereas the OP solely earming 52k, is much more deserving of it.

They need to urgently change the system to total income for that family, not one parent.

As a single parent on £49k, it makes me so angry that households with £98k can still claim it. It is discrimination against lone parents and I have yet to hear any justification for it.

I totally agree with you, it’s not fair at all.

SuperSue77 - thank you ! That is what I had thought, but then doubted myself! My pension contributions bring me to £49k so I’m ok to keep CB then aren’t I ?

If you do exam marking shouldn’t you be doing a self assessment form anyway? How do you pay tax on that pay?

When you do your self assessment make sure you claim for everything you can relating to that - electricity, paper, laptop, stationary, ink etc. you can get a lot off your tax this way!

I obviously come from a different world from most mumsnetters but I don’t understand why you would need child benefit if you earn 52 grand per year!

YANBU X

OP you 100% will not need to pay any back on 52k teacher salary. I am in the same boat. Only needed to start paying any back at all (& not all that much of it) at around 58k as a teacher paying into tps.

£50k a year as a single parent to pay for an entire household is not flush me trust me! Maybe direct it to the player upthread who says it’s needed on a couple income of £100k

Yes, so you don’t need to do a self-assessment form, assuming you are PAYE and your partner isn’t earning over £50k. You can earn up to £50,099 before you have to start paying any back. If one partner does earn over that amount then the highest earner has to pay it back through their tax. If one partner isn’t earning then it’s best that they claim it whether their partner has to pay some back or not as they will get their NI contributions made by he govt - otherwise you could end up not having made sufficient contributions over the years.

As others have said, it’s unfair as a family where one parent works might earn £60k per year and receive no child benefit. Another family where both work and earn £98k combined would receive full child benefit.

It depends on the area you live-you cant get a house in our area for under 400k - my brother lives in an area where the average house price is 700k.

I do it on 29k and don't consider myself poor. 50 k is a bloody good income!

As an illustration, there's a small but growing cohort of UC recipients, people who the state helps with housing and/or childcare costs usually, who aren't entitled to full child benefit. That's how batshit our housing system is.

Sure! You live in an expensive area then houses are expensive.
My family live in Sussex. I have seen people on MN say that they have to buy expensive houses to live in this county. In reality they want to live in certain villages or towns that are highly sought after.

Why on earth can this not be addressed? It’s so unfair and has been dragging on since this government came in, I think?

@CandleInTheStorm it depends on region you live, number of children etc, I wear clothes that are over five years old and have no savings at all.

Thank you SuperSue77 I think I had used the calculator wrongly. On the page you screen shot you are supposed to add the pay you get minus the pension? I out the full amount with no deductions at all and that gave me the £400ish bill. But if I put the taxable total, which is minus the pension contribution, it says I have nothing to pay. The thing that threw me was the net page that says pension contributions paid before tax don't count - but it seems that they are deducted on the previous page?

Fuck, it's so bloody confusing. And no, I'm not head of maths 😀.

And as for some of the comments - it really is a race to the bottom for some. How some people can think it's a fair system and can fail to see that a single parent on an income similar to what 2 lowish paid adults would be on is not loaded is beyond me.

Thanks for all the supportive and helpful posts and solidarity to anyone in a similar position!

If you don’t claim Child Benefit then you can’t get the higher rate of Bereavement Support Payment, should the worst happen (for married couples or those in civil partnerships). So it’s maybe better for some people to claim it, even if part of it gets clawed back in your tax return. Obvs no point doing this if you’re single though.

Single parent on a decent wage here. Child benefit helps make up for their dad who screws the system and pays £7 a week towards two kids. One thing I discovered when doing my self assessment last week was that profit from a buy to let doesn’t factor in any mortgage interest costs. So I had £49k income, £7k income from a buy to let, and I had to pay £4k in mortgage interest (yes I know it’s barely worth the bother!). My income for the purposes of calculating how much child benefit I had to pay back was £56k not £52k. I hadn’t realised (my fault).

As your pension payment will take you under just don’t do anything

worst case scenario you will get a letter (my husband did but he was properly over the threshold, I was aware had just forgotten to cancel the payments.). He didn’t get into any trouble or anything just told he has to pay it back, which he did. But I don’t think you will. You may with another pay rise though.

and yeah is totally unfair for single parents In your situation.

It’s also quite ironic that single parents have very little ability to move somewhere cheaper as where they live (region wise not house obviously) is dictated by childcare arrangements

You can also claim but opt out of getting the money. This gives the NI credits for the non-worker or low earner but means no tax return is required for paying back CB

You're right. It's not child benefits fault. It's the tories and, assuming, self righteous fuckers like you who vote for them.

Just to add…she’s also stated she’s a lone parent not getting anything from the Dad. If you divide her salary in two, her total household income is under the average for most two full time salary households in this country.

What should surprise you is families earning nearly 100k still getting child benefit, not a single Mum working her balls off for the family.