Salary sacrifice?

[TheRedHen2]

How do you decide which parent should take the salary sacrifice for the nursery fees? Does it matter?

Do you mean who buys into a salary sacrifice scheme? Or just who should pay childcare?

If you have the opportunity to have the nursery fees paid from your salary on a salary sacrifice scheme then does it matter who sacrifices their salary? The higher or lower earner?

Basically, is there a tax advantage either way?

Higher earner should do it as if will lower their salary for tax purposes.

If the higher earner is a higher rate tax payer it would make sense for them to do it.

The higher earner would see the most tax efficiency, but I think the scheme is closed to new applicants?

I thought both could do it?

If not, not all schemes are the same. Check the small print. Mine on the face of it was great, but in fact meant I signed a new contract at salary - vouchers. Any sick leave, pension, mat leave etc were then based on my “new”, lower salary, so it didn’t save much, especially as I was planning no.2.

wasn’t worth it. We went with dh’s scheme as that kept his original salary and contract, the vouchers were just deducted from his pay.

Vouchers are closed now. If your employer offers salary sacrifice then there's no point sacrificing anything under £13k as that's the tax free personal allowance so you're not paying tax on it anyway. Best to sacrifice earnings over £50k first to save 40% tax.

One earns more than the other but they're both basic rate tax payers