Child benefit help needed

[Witchesbrew]

Does anyone know if I have to declare that my dh is a higher-rate tax payer to the Child Benefit people or do they somehow get told?

I am worried that I will be asked to pay back months of child benefit.

tia

The changes to Child Benefit only come into being in 2013, so there is no need to tell anyone anything at the moment - indeed they haven't asked anyone to declare their income yet because it's a universal benefit paid out to millionaires and the unemployed alike. HMRC, who administer Child & Family Tax Credits, should be aware of your household income.

It's far from clear what the regime will look like yet.

Comments seem to suggest the onus will be on the HRT to declare if anyone in their household receives CB, and if yes, the cash element will be clawed back from the HRT. It may well be worth going through this (rather than just stopping claiming) in order to keep the NI credit part of CB. (This is why the measure may not decrease the cash bill as much as expected as admin costs will rise under this scenario).

Thanks!

I really don't see how HMRC will be aware of household income as people are taxed independently, and so there is no reason to link my tax with my dh's (both are done in different places), especially if one doesn't have tax credits or any other benefits besides cb.

HMRC are relying on one partner telling the other what they are doing, and this doesn't always work.

My feeling is that by 2013/14 the whole PAYE, HMRC, taxpaying, income-declaration, benefit claiming issue will have been reformed and streamlined. It's too complex & inconsistent at the moment, there have been too many administrative errors made recently, there's too much duplication and it simply isn't geared for an age in which people don't do the same job for 30 or 40 years at a stretch.

I'm always annoyed, for example, that I send in full details of my earnings in a tax self-assessment form every year only to be asked to send it all in again for the CTC claim. I think, in future, we'll all be expected to submit statements of our individual circumstances, be able to update it more easily, and the information (spot checked randomly for accuracy) will be used intelligently to calculate what tax we should pay or what help we are entitled to.