There’s no way we need to pay back this much?

[Jobseeking]

child benefit,

so it’s dh, and I think he’s got this wrong

gross income (bonus, salary etc etc) £62000
gross pension paid £8487

total child benefit claimed £1885 (2 kids)

amount owed in self assessment tax return £2243.

surely this isn’t right? Husband is PAYE employee so tax is deducted at source and he’s not had any coms stating other wise from hmrc. Where as me, when I moved up a pay bracket, for a letter straight in the post advising I’d not paid enough tax.

can anyone help with this?

^ gross income minus gross pension is 54k

I assume this relates to 2022-23 if he's doing a tax return now?

And when you say he's PAYE, that's there's no other source of complicating income?

The reason for owing more than amount received in child benefit could be due to insufficient tax paid on other benefits e.g. company car, health insurance and so on. Or, tax code not catching up with any other pay increase.

First step if to check he agrees with the details in his P60 and P11D, then that he's input it all correctly into the self assessment.

If in doubt, phone HMRC. They're pretty good on the helpline, do it now before they get silly busy nearer the deadline.

I budget £100 a month to pay back out of similar figures

Does he get any other P11d benefits? Had he underpaid tax in previous years? Has he paid less into his pension than previously? Is this the first time he’s earned more than £50k? Was his pay the same every month of the year?

Payroll can often be wrong. For future reference, if he’d done his tax return before 31 December this wouldn’t have been payable up front it would just have been taken as part of his PAYE in 2024-25.

Can you download the SA302 from the government gateway? You can check the figures on that, and see how the tax liability is built up.

Yes that was for all the 22/23 tax year

no additional income just salary and bonus

p11d is expenses right? He’s not claimed any and he agreed with the p60. He’s still only on 1250L

I’ll get him to call.

im trying to work out what’s the portion of child benefit to pay back (as I’ve been in receipt of that) and what’s the tax he needs to pay back.

i just don’t get why they’ve not written out to him and amended his personal allowance to make the adjustment for tax not paid over the course of the year, like they did with me

Did he fill the form in correctly? Did he put his pension deductions on there ( if they are not taken pre tax for tax relief) ? I’d check the completed form in the first instance.

I don’t know about the specifics of child benefit as I’ve never claimed it but I do know that HMRC employ some quite complex calculations even for PAYE.

My only income is from a single PAYE role I’ve held for around a decade yet every single year when I complete my self assessment form I end up with a couple of thousand pound worth of tax over or under paid for the previous year.

I’ve queried this with both HMRC and HR and it appears that even if you are salaried HMRC use estimates for full year calculations. I normally get a bonus in the last week of the financial year which skews their estimates.

The only way to avoid it is to log on to your Govt Gateway account and input your expected annual income.

What tax amount has he paid for that year on his P60?

I think it might be right, because for every £100 he earns over £50000 its 1% paid back. So he has earned £12k over that which equals 120% pay back. 120% of £1885 is £2262, which is pretty much what he's been asked to pay. It seems mad to pay back more than what you received though, but maybe this is just what they do to encourage you not to have claimed it while he's on that salary?

I suspect your child benefit all has to be repaid if you claim it, as he is above the income threshold to keep any of it. WE always used to put ours straight to the side, knowing it would all have to be repaid because my husband's salary was over £60k. Once you hit £60k salary-wise, you lose all of it.

Only certain types of pension contribution are taken in to account for calculating the High Income Child Benefit Charge and most standard work place pensions don't count as they're taken pre-tax.

Best to call HICBC or income tax helpline to see what type of pension contributions have gone through Pay As You Earn and whether they can be deducted.

Assuming pension is not deductible, and earnings are considered as £60,000+, the full amount of child benefit is due back.

Your partner might have underpaid tax elsewhere throughout the year which would be the difference between the child benefit amount owed and your partner's tax bill.

I don’t have to sort child benefit in my tax return but I do have to pay extra each year for different reasons and I like to know what is attributable to what - so I do the tax return a few times and see the calculation each time (without submitting, obviously) but with different bits left out, to understand the impact of each. Which is a long way of suggesting that he takes out all of the child benefit part of his return and see if he has tax owing without it - and, if so, how much. Then add the child benefit stuff and see how much it goes up. I’ve probably explained that horribly!

I thought it was on your net pay, which would be 54k.

even at 60 I thought you just paid it back entirely not that you can possible pay back more than you claimed? That can’t be right? I’ve looked online and I can’t find any info that says you might pay more back than you claim?

Are his pension contributions salary sacrifice or relief at source?

Yeah seems mad to pay more than 100%. Maybe the figures are just coincidence. But earning £60k totally wipes out child benefit as that's the 100% marker, and no its on gross earnings (happy to be corrected if I'm wrong).

I'm pretty sure you don't have to pay back more than they give you - that would be crazy

You’re not entitled to child benefit if one of you earns over £50K and you will have to pay back previous years too.

Sorry OP you need to stop claiming it immediately.

Apologies have reread the OP. Ignore.

Do you know which type of pension contributions he makes, net pay or relief at source? It's only relief at source that would be deducted from the income figure on his P60.

Is any of the money owed an adjustment for the current tax year? There is an option on the form to pay for what will be underpaid this tax year on account. That could be the reason.

Or if your husband receives any benefits at work, such as car or healthcare, which haven't been taxed correctly.

There are a lot of things that it could be. Without seeing the full assessment and knowing your husbands full financial details it's hard to advise.

You are entitled over £50k, you just get deductions until the £60k point which you are no longer entitled.

It's salary net of gift aid and pension contributions, and it's maxed at 100%.

Sounds like something else going on - have you savings that you've earned interest on? I got caught this year, once you trip into higher tax bracket you can only earn £500 interest tax free not £1000, and with interest rates high, suddenly you can find yourself earning decent interest in your savings instead of the pennies we've had for years!

When you pay your self assessment bill you now have to make a ‘payment on account’ which is an advance payment for the following year. These are part of your self assessment tax bill calculation. Could it be that adding to the child benefit repayment and making it more than he expected?
https://www.gov.uk/understand-self-assessment-bill/payments-on-account

Unfortunately no one can help you without looking at the detail of your tax return. If you don't understand it ask an accountant to take a look or a friend who you trust who is financially literate.

This is why we cancelled our child benefit payments when DH went over the threshold. He had to pay back more than we'd received when he did his tax return

Happy to be corrected, plus it possibly depends on other things such as pension, but my understanding is that if he's earnt over £60k, then you have to pay back 100% of the child benefit.

The balance of the money owed is relatively small, easily attributable to a change in salary, tax code if tax was owed from a previous year, and so on.

I understand you need to get to the bottom of it, but you won't owe back, for the child benefit only, more than you've received, IYSWIM.