Tax free childcare and universal credit

[Angeldelight21]

Hi mums,
I need urgently an advice on tax free childcare/universal credit. I think I've done something realky wrong and need to fix it.

I have applied for tax free childcare back in September last year and reconfirmed 3 months later in November. I have then applied for universal credit, paid from January this year.

I needed to reconfirm my details for the tax free childcare account and just realised I cannot claim both.

Do I have to go back to Tax-free child maintenance and pay the money back? Or let Universal credit know? It was absolutely unintential and at the last re-confirmation I did not get any UC at the time.

Also, does it mean I will the 15 hrs free childcare fir 2 yrs old from April?

Please help, I need to fix it.
TIA

You won’t have been able to claim childcare back on UC if it was paid using tax free childcare, because they ask to see your bank statement as proof and tax free childcare payments don’t come out of that. If the tax free childcare account was just open but not used it’s fine. Just don’t reconfirm the tax free childcare account

You can use tax free child care OR have the Child Care Element in Universal Credit. Most people probably find that claiming it through UC is a better deal.

Thank you for your replies. The thing is I have been using the tax free childcare account while receiving universal credit. I was not asked to provide bank statements etc. as part of the application.

I did re-confirm my details back in November before I applied for UC.

Do you think as long as I don't re-confirm now I should be ok? Or do I need to contact anyone.

Also, do you think might loose the 15hrs free childcare for 2 year olds?

But did you claim childcare costs through universal credit and get paid for them already?

And I’ve no idea about the 15 hours, google says it depends on income.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2463411913883141/?ref=share

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1824855797785386/?ref=share

Join these groups in FB. Super helpful

If you are not actually entitled to any universal credit it sounds like you earn too much to get the 15 hours due to low income, but there is the new 15 hours for 2 year olds for working parents, might you get that? If so worth applying. Could you just put a message in universal credit to let them know you are worried about double claiming for childcare?