HMRC suddenly refusing us tax free childcare when nothing had changed

[Maternityleavelady]

Our salaries haven’t changed and out of the blue (after 5 years of tax free childcare), HMRC have said we no longer qualify because they don’t think we will earn the required £846 per month. We have sent them our bank statements and payslips showing historical earnings and confirmed that nothing has changed. They confirmed again that they don’t think we will earn enough. The reply says if we want to appeal we have to go to court!

Is this their attempt to save money? Are they using AI and the algorithm is all wrong? Has anyone had the same issue and successfully had the decision over-turned?

Will double check this but I don’t think so - invoices fairly evenly spaced

One client is a regular fixed monthly amount so it’s a sort of statement/payslip. They rest are invoices/bank transfers

Can you afford to see an accountant and get them to give advice about payroll.

Why would OP need this? If she's genuinely self employed she can't be on her own payroll.

What a pain - I think we will have to do the same - but glad you got there in the end! We have already had to pay some fees without our discount but hopefully can at least get it reinstated before the next bill is due.

HMRC will use the P60 data sent by her employer to ascertain the details. It is possible they have either 1) sent incorrect PAYE data 2) something has reduced income to below the threshold - this can happen with some salary sacrifice schemes.

If OP is in Self Assessment. It may be that have filed incorrectly.

Update: we reapplied from scratch again rather than appealing again fruitlessly - and were immediately approved! Bonkers