Child Benefit for three children, Husband earns 51,000

[fairyfairygirl]

Can somebody explain how it works in terms for qualifying still for child benefit for three children when husband's salary is £51,000. I am a SAHM. Many thanks!

The cut off is £50,000 is it not?

It's phased from 50-60.

The number of children is irrelevant.

More importnatly is the 51k net or gross?

You can still receive payments, husband declares it on a tax return and repays anything due. Unless you have significant other income from bank accounts etc it is likely to be negligible if at all.

You will lose 10% of your total child benefit. I found a good website that explains it with examples the other day...

Your husband will be taxed more than his normal rate. It is probably more beneficial to increase his pension contributions to take his earnings to just below 50k. He will be slightly worse off for now either way but at least if the loss goes into a pension it'll work out better for him in the long run

www.rossmartin.co.uk/private-client-a-estate-planning/863-how-to-work-out-the-child-benefit-tax-charge

You can deduct extra pension/childcare vouchers if you prefer to take you just under the 50k cutoff and avoid the hassle of a tax return.

Sacrifice as much salary as you can in pension / childcare vouchers / cycle to work schemes etc.

Claim child benefit.

Complete tax return. You will either pay back 10% in tax, or less, depending on how much salary he has sacrificed.

Only stop claiming once the sacrificed salary is over 60k

As long as pays at least £1000 a year into his pension you'll still be entitled to the full amount so don't worry.

Thanks all, great advice, will get him to up pension contributions slightly!