Child benefit - do I cancel it?

[LonelyLinda]

Could anybody advise me what to do please. My DH is over the tax threshold and I vaguely remember seeing something on here about pros and cons of keeping it or cancelling it, but I cant remember why.

could anybody explain it to me please? Sorry for being so vague.

You definitely can claim back for charitable giving. At my old work a lot of the senior people had to do tax returns for various reasons and whenever there was a charity thingy HR used to send round an email reminding them to be generous and then claim back the extra bit! That was a while ago, but MrAnchovy on my other thread is an accountant and confirmed it still applies. No idea about proof of payment, etc you need though.

Thanks. I think we need to see an accountant. DH has been paying to NSPCC for years AFAIK. We have never claimed back the tax relief. There must be about 10 years worth

Not sure how far you can go back. Don't think it's as far as 10 years. Might be six though Not sure where I got that number from though.

"why would he not be paying the right amount of tax now?"

I found that the main areas that could be wrong were pension contributions, charitable donations and the value of a company car (if applicable). If it's any help, I use a nifty bit of self assessment software called 'TaxCalc' which is about the best £25 I spend all year. Leads you through the whole SA process by the hand and lets you see whether they owe you or you owe them at the end. I always seem to end up being owed money.

I am a little about the whole 'moral' dimension being tacked on to the question of cancelling CB - we are no longer entitled to retain the CB but I am continuing to claim, keeping the money in a separate account (the amount of interest is not life changing) then we will go through the tax self assess repayment route.

It makes no sense to me to stop claiming we are not so much over the 60k threshold and the threshold may change in future, dh could change jobs - when I return to work he may want to take a lower paid job closer to home. So retaining our claim is the option I am most comfortable with. In my opinion the CB payment is a recognition of the cost of raising a family (of future tax payers). I am also fed up with the line being trotted out by Gov spokespersons - 'why should a family earning 20k be paying for the CB of a family earning 80k?' as it seems to disregard the fact that a family on 80k is paying tax in excess of the lower paid families income - just another example of our Govt divide and conquer approach - really divisive and unpleasant. I don't mind so much losing the CB (although we are certainly not using it champagne and second cars) but I do resent misrepresentation.

Thanks Cogito. Will look into it. DH has pension contributions deducted at source from work, so there won't be any claim there for us. No company car or other benefits in kind either. Could well be onto something with charitable donations though.

Ah, my mistake. Thank you.
On that point then, yours will also benefit and lose out from the double edged sword of tougher GSCEs with less course work; better for the children to be tested more rigorously, but tricky when it comes to the job market and competitive playing field they are up against. They can't really say they are a '2015 examinee' so their B should be considered an A. And they won't have the advantage of multiple past papers with which to revise.
Chopping and changing every five years just makes individuals fall between the cracks. I would prefer if the State were kept small and focused on projects that need people to come together to solve/finance such as road building, while staying out of other matters where individuals and families are better placed to decide for themselves.
It would be better to cut benefits, along with taxes (when there is some money around), and let people decide how to spend their own money, rather than all this tax and then redistribution to those you have already been taxed.
Instead of jostling for political advantage the parties should come together and decide on some 10 to 20 year plans and get rid of these vote winning carrots like child benefit and child trust funds (which I think have gone, although I haven't tracked it because not eligible). They just create the illusion that one is getting something back, but it is paltry compared to what has been put in by many.

I would have preferred to opt out of the trust funds as dd and ds had savings accounts set up for them as soon as they had their birth certificates. Now ds has something dd didn't have and put me in a situation I was never happy with.

I sympathise. It's rotten to have an unlevel playing field created in your own home which is out of your control. Particularly as you made the effort to get them started off well even with all the start-up costs of children coming upon you.
It's similar to child benefit where some better off families will continue to be eligible while other 'less well offs' are not.
It does make the case for getting State involvement out of mainstream society where individuals are better placed to make their own informed and fairer decisions, while it focuses on the minority cases. Then hopefully the majority can end up paying less tax into the centre.

Thank you for the advice, I will opt out if I am still in time. If not I will save it so that it can be repaid later.

Thank you.

I've just had a look and the home responsibilities proection (now national insurance credits) are still applied to those SAHP claiming child benefit up to the age of 12.

If you cancel CB I understand you would lose this credit (although with the most recent pension changes this may not be such a worry?)

you can apply for child benefit but opt out of the payment and still get the NI credits.

We will stop claiming CB when we can combine our personal allowances. If we are a unit for benefits then we should be a unit for taxes.