To ask how child benefit works if you thought you needed to pay it back, but now don't?

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I thought my income was going to be about £61k this year. it isn't, it's going to be £48k (i.e. under the child benefit threshold where you need to pay any back). we had submitted a claim for child benefit but opted OUT of taking any payment so we get the National Insurance ticks.

So now I know i'll have earned way under the threshold.. I've just done a claim for child benefit and they've sent me a letter saying they'll start paying it to me from mid-April onwards.

But i'm slightly panicking, because i thought i'd get this tax year's child benefit in a lump sum (because it turns out i'm eligible for it).. while the letter suggests it'll just be paid from April onwards. Online advice says that backdated payments only go back 3 months.

Should I have claimed the payment, then paid back if i owed anything?
i thought i was doing this the right way around (assume i'm not entitled and so opt out of the payments, and if it turns we are eligible, we'd get a handy lump sum before the end of the tax year).

have i totally fucked up? 😰

i am on hold to HMRC now but i've been on hold for so long i don't think anyone is picking up and i'm going to give up (for a 2nd time this week).

Yes it's worth claiming it then repaying if your income is somewhere around the threshold. We've always claimed and if DH gets a huge bonus we just pay it back, it's only put in savings anyway.

Restart your claim and backdate.

actually i've used some really vague wording.. we've always had a "claim" for child benefit since the start of the tax year. it's just we "OPTED OUT" of taking the payments.

i think that might make a difference?

the claim itself has run through the entire year.. it's just i opted out of taking the money.

i'm crapping myself about this as i'd assumed i was doing the smart thing - what an idiot!

Don't know how far they would backdate it. I doubt you'd get the while years worth as a lump sum but you'd need to clarify with them

The new thresholds only take effect from 6 April 2024 - for the 2023-24 tax year, they are unchanged, with child benefit starting to be recouped at £50k, and recouped in full by £60k.

I believe the Child Benefit office will only backdate by 3 months max - if you think you will earn under £80k in 2024-25, it's worth claiming for the full year, potentially putting the money in a savings account and repaying only if earnings are higher than expected.

Although my apologies, I misread the figure in your OP and of course you are under the threshold this year. Do check with the CB office as to how far they will allow a backdated claim.

Googling suggests that if you opted out of payment then you can get backdated payments for up to 2 tax years.

It's only new claims that the 3 months backdating applies to (I think)

Best option for future, based on your circumstances, is to claim, and then do a tax return after end of tax year and repay anything owed.

I assume you're the higher earner in your household?

Yes i'm the higher earner. DH doesn't work at all.

"Googling suggests that if you opted out of payment then you can get backdated payments for up to 2 tax years."

This is what i'd hoped/assumed. Do you have a source/link? I'm still on hold... 48mins...😪

I think they only backdate a maximum of 3 months. So you could claim this and then start afresh on April 24 claiming every month. The repayment is a sliding scale, so for 23/24 if you earn just over 50k you don’t have to pay much back, so it’s still worth claiming.

sorry OP just read your update - hopefully they can backdate 2 years worth for you.

ah i think i've now found a hint of this online:

https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-nic/income-tax/high-income-child-benefit-charge/hicbc-what-do-if-your-income-falls#5

"Restarting payments after having opted outRefer to the guidance on GOV.UK.
You can also request to reinstate payments for the two previous tax years, if applicable, by contacting the child benefit office via telephone. You should make a note of the date and time of the call and the information provided."

just in case it helps future readers with this problem.

thanks all. i'm slightly less of a panick-y mess now!

Same happened to us. Husband earnt a lot less commission than expected. I called them and they backdated and had nearly £1000 in our account within 2 days

https://revenuebenefits.org.uk/child-benefit/guidance/how-do-child-benefit-and-guardians-allowance-work/high-income-child-benefit-charge/

This says the same sort of thing and that you should be able to claim all the missed payments

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/child-benefit-technical-manual/cbtm03130

Have found it on the .gov site too

thanks all - handy to have the HMRC documentation to hand!

fortunately i've just spoken with HMRC finally, a very helpful Irish-sounding chap is processing the lump sum back payment now, and it should be with us in " 3 to 5 days".. i'm off to pour myself a glass of straight whisky now, i thought i had been a real idiot trying to avoid having to pay anything back and being dumb as a result. phew!

We always used to claim it and then pay back if necessary. Sometimes we didn’t have to pay it all back depending on what he earned that year.

That is correct.
If you make a claim is either Monday following date of birth or 3 months if older. From date received in department.
You can opt back into receiving the payments two full tax years. Or if earlier whenever you want! So anytime less than two years.

Hello, so sorry to jump on this but I thought it might be easier than making a new post (and google isnt helping me too much either!)

We have a similar situation but nowhere near as long. My husband got a new job and higher salary so I thought I would be proactive and opt out of payments, but I didn’t take into consideration the salary change was happening part way through the year so we never actually jumped the threshold. My question is can I ring and ask for them to look into backdating our CB payments for the past 6 months?

Thank you!