15 free hours and self employed

[Vikki1234]

Hi all I work full time and my partner has just set up to be self employed. He has registered and has UTR number etc. However am unsure on how the 15 hours for our nearly 2 year old is going to work. I have read as its the 1st year he is self employed he doesn't have to earn the threshold amount but a confused o how they will know he is and how much he is earning. I understand you don't do a tax return until later in the year. Do you have to submit evidence to government etc?

Any help welcome. There is not much info on the 15 hours for self employed!

Thank you xx

Ok firstly hate to disappoint you these hours are NOT free . Free is apparently the time , but you will have consumable charges from all settings , dinner nappies, paint , yoga etc . We’ve all been miss-sold the golden goose’s egg .
now I’m no carol Forden - but babies are a ratio of one early years educator to three … so the setting receives £5 per hour per child , that’s £15 squid , out of that comes the individual educators wages and …

1. food
2. heating
3. insurance
4. mandatory training + more
5. bins
6. business rates
7. consumables
8. maintenance
9. rent

to mention a few so how does this equate - guess what it doesn’t ! settings will either refuse your 30 hours or to deliver quality education and care with charges . Seriously your home finances are going to be no better off . It’s one big lie.

My child only does 1 day a week so if I qualify for 15 hours but have to pay for nappies, food etc I will hopefully still be better off. They'll be able to do more hours but I won't have to pay as much.

I do think there's an underlying catch somewhere to all this maybe to do with NI contributions! Xxx

HMRC allow a grace period of 12 months from business start-up where you don’t have to earn the minimum in order to qualify for the hours. They won’t charge you back if he doesn’t make enough in year 1, though you may then become ineligible for the following year – I don’t know how they work out eligibility after the 12 months (I guess they just find out when he submits the second tax return?). Bear in mind that you also have to be working at least 16 hours at minimum wage (or earning the equivalent of that) in order to qualify. You don’t get the hours unless both parents are working (assuming both parents are the child’s primary carers).

Not 16 hours any more , 30 hours at work per week , when you have a child over 3 years of age . Any one on universal credits will have to attend a meeting once a month to prove job applications made to meet this criteria . This is an enormous leap for families , and many jobs don’t offer 30 hours .

Perhaps there are different criteria if you are on UC? But for most families each parent needs to earn at least the equivalent of 16 hours/week at minimum wage (and no more than £100k) in order to qualify for 30 hours of funded childcare for a 3–4-year-old (and the new 15 hours for 2-year-olds from April).

(Source: https://www.gov.uk/check-eligible-free-childcare-if-youre-working)