Childminders Club: Vouchers????

One of my parents uses vouchers - they get £217/month (max possible) which is tax-free for them, so saves them money.

The vouchers are sent to the mum, she gives them to me, I type in the numbers and email to the company, they confirm numbers received, money is paid direct into my bank account. The parents pay me the remainder of the money. I think some of the other voucher systems are probably a little simpler than this one.

I guess that the easy answer is that is doesn't particularly benefit you at all but, if you refuse to take them, parents may go elsewhere for a childminder??

I know lots of other minders here take vouchers, and there have been several threads on the subject.

I hear lots of parents wanting to pay with this but havent done it myself so unsure of the benefits apart from being paid on time as long as you set it up early enough. I would use it if a parent asked as it can save lots of fuss writing cheques/late payment fee and it saves them tax i believe.

the schemes work in 3 ways,

• the parent gets paper vouchers to give to you, which you have to send off to get paid
  
• the voucher company pays direct into your bank account
  
• the voucher company pays direct into the parent's bank account & they then pay you. (so it is still possible to get a cash payment from the parent using a voucher scheme)
  

I'm talking about employer's vouchers, which are only available to a parent if their company does them.

Tax credits are completely different, and is where parents can get financial help towards their childcare.

Childcare tax credits is the payment that goes direct to the parent, where they can claim up to 70% of their childcare costs (think its gone up to more than that now?)

The employer vouchers are where the parent can choose to receive part of their income as childcare vouchers which can only be used to pay for childcare. The parent saves money here because they don't have to pay national insurance or tax on the vouchers (only a up to a certain maximum value though, they can't get all their salary tax free!). To confuse matters further there are loads of companies that provide childcare vouchers!

employee vouchers went up with the budget - HR told me it's £233 (I think, didn't take much notice as don't need that much!) a month now.

I guess you can choose the bank account they are paid too, so could avoid the one with the overdraft!

I just paid my first month with vouchers and my cm hasn't come back to say she wasn't paid. Though, I did receive the vouchers to pay her half way through march (was to be deducted from pay received on the 27th march) so I would have thought I probably could have paid her them a bit earlier so that she definately got cleared funds on April 1st.

Suppose the other benefit for CM's that at least you know the money is cleared already (as its gone from employer to the voucher organisation)therefore is more like cash, whereas with a cheque it can still bounce! Also, you can get voucher paid over the phone or on the internet, so no trip into town to pay in a cheque.

With tax credits aren't they based on the previous year? I know the form I filled out asked for childcare costs spent in the previous tax year to the one we were currently in - I think I also had to authenticate childcare option by detailing name and address of childcare provider. If this is the case this isn't going to effect what you are paid in the current year. then again I maybe completely wrong as we don't actually get anything here.

Some parents have done the dirty on minders doing this (I'm sure there's a thread or two on the subject). However, I have minded for many families who have claimed tax credits, and I have never been mucked about. I guess we only hear the bad stories.

I always say to parents, very very nicely, that I would have to contact the tax office if anything untoward happened (ie. they claimed credits and then did a runner).