NI Credit if you stop Child Benefit because you're over threshold?

[moosemama]

Dh has only very recently started earning over the threshold for Child Benefit and we chose to stop receiving it, as his tax returns are complicated enough.

It just suddenly hit me when I was doing some financial planning, that I don't know if that means they will have stopped my National Insurance Credits as well.

I am a SAHM and will be unable to go back to full-time work due to health problems. My youngest is only 7, so I think I should continue to receive the credits until she's 12 in 5 years time - is that right?

Does anyone know if they automatically stop the credits as well as the CB if you choose to stop receiving the CB?

I've just sent off an online request for my NI history and will contact the CB office if I need to, which will help me make more sense of things, but would like to set my mind at rest sooner, if anyone knows offhand. (All my CB paperwork is in storage that I can't access easily, which is why I didn't just do that first.)

.gov website says:

You can choose not to get Child Benefit payments, but you should still fill in the Child Benefit claim form. This will help you getNational Insurance creditswhich count towards yourState Pension.

Thank you, but is that not relating to when you first apply?

I have been receiving CB since ds1 was born almost 14 years ago and have had and applied for two other dcs since then, so I was definitely allocated NI Credits when I first applied. What I don't know is if they stopped paying the credits when we filled in the online form to stop them paying the CB. There was no mention of it on the online form, as that would have reminded me that I needed to check.

www.gov.uk/national-insurance-credits/eligibility - says you still get them

How to get credits:
You’re a parent registered for Child Benefit for a child under 12 (even if you don’t receive it)
You get Class 3 credits automatically

If your DH is doing a tax return anyway, I would just continue to claim the money, to be honest. It's like a 3 second job to declare it on the tax form. My salary has fluctuated in recent years, e.g. left a job and had a bit of a gap before starting the next one, that I ended up under the threshold. I can just imagine the government would happily have back-dated the CB when it turned out I was eligible for it after all - NOT. The other point is that if your DH has charitable contributions and so on to declare, his income will be reduced by that amount and so you're eligible for the CB again. I also used to claim it and then pay it back as an act of civil disobedience, to make it more expensive for the government to administer.

Finally, I don't trust the DWP about the NI credit for the SAHP (my DH in my case). A flow of actual money leaves a better audit trail in the case of a future dispute.

Thank you again.

I didn't come across that page when I was searching.

That does seem to imply you will continue getting the credits even if you no longer receive the CB.

Just hope the different government departments are joined up and communicative enough to have make sure it happens.

You can check your NI record to make sure it did - you can ask for a full statement somewhere on gov.uk.

tribpot dh does have the various bits and pieces like charitable contributions that bring his basic salary down below threshold, but then his bonus takes him back over it again.

We're currently paying back a CB overpayment, because his salary changed after a company reshuffle and we didn't realise straight away that it had gone over the top level of the taper. While it was still within the tapered salary levels we just kept on claiming and it was sorted via his tax return. Dh doesn't want to claim and repay it anymore though, because his company is notoriously bad for messing up their employees' tax etc as it is and it was all just getting too messy.

Your final paragraph echoes the sentiment I was trying to express in mine. Unfortunately, what the DWP say and what they do, can't always be trusted to be the same thing.

I have applied for a National Insurance record covering my entire life since I started work in the 80's, so it should be immediately obvious if they have screwed up and stopped paying the NI Credit since we stopped claiming CB. I am really just trying to get my head around my potential pension situation - although I don't know why, I should probably just assume I won't get anything, then anything I do get will feel like a bonus!

Thank you Prof I did that this afternoon, so hopefully that will tell me what I need to know. I was just being impatient, so posted on MN in the hope someone may have already checked and knew the answer.

I don't think it would involve his company, would it? If he has to pay some of it back he can do so directly, not via PAYE. The other point (which my DH didn't make to me) is that I don't see why the SAHP should be deprived of the income - as it's means tested clearly the WOHP is meant to make up the shortfall.

I am inclined to agree with you tribpot. I suspect dh just wants to make his life easier by not having to deal with it.

We've always had just the one joint account (together for 28 years) and for the longest time I was the main earner. Unfortunately, with it becoming increasingly obvious that I wasn't going to go back to work and feeling fed up of having absolutely no money I could call my own, we had just worked out a new budget that involved the CB being paid into an account for me to use (the lions' share of what I spend goes on the dc anyway). Then when we stopped claiming CB I ended up not getting an account.

To be fair, this is because we don't have the spare funds, due to still paying off debt from multiple years of dh not having a decent enough salary and me being too ill to work. We have 24 months left until we'll be debt free and things will be much easier then. I always thought we'd be laughing if dh's salary ever reached this amount, seems I was optimistically naive.

I know we've veered slightly off the topic but given you still have that expenditure for the dc, regardless of debts, I would still push for your own account for those funds. (I'd also keep pushing the point about claiming the CB and paying it back through the tax return - it honestly is a piece of piss. If it really came to it, you can restart your claim regardless of what he says).

I am still pushing for the account and he does agree in principle, but we've hit a impasse over how much should go into it.

I can still buy/pay for whatever the dcs need via the joint account, so it's not like I can't afford to pay for things, I would just like to feel I had at least some degree of autonomy over something. It's hard enough being stuck at home, unable to get out, let alone go to work. Having lost all my independence in just about every way, it would be nice to think I could at least have some financial independence.

We will get there. Dh isn't being deliberately obstructive or restrictive, he's just a slow burner. One morning he will wake up and agree with everything I've said and somehow, miraculously it will have been all his own idea!

Yes, my DH is in a similar situation to you and has his own account for the same reason, although actually I pay for most stuff for ds. You can at least open the account, I assume - a basic one like the Co-op or similar? Then the question of how much to pay in becomes more real. Presumably as you have access to the joint account too you could just transfer whatever amount you deemed appropriate into your sole account, although I accept that would be somewhat extreme :)

I have already opened an account. Just a basic current account with our existing bank, just to make things easier from an admin point of view. I've had it for a couple of months now - there's just no money in it! I only told dh I'd done it last week though, as I know putting him under pressure is always counter-productive.

I could just set up a standing order from the joint account, but I'd far rather it was done as an agreement that we're both happy with.

It feels very strange, as we've never had 'your money'/'my money' at all before. I think finally getting a diagnosis and realising that, realistically, I won't every be going back to work, has made me sit up and look at a lot of things, both imminent and in the future - hence thinking about pensions. I'm hoping I can come up with some sort of small home-based way of making money over the next couple of years, perhaps something like a small Etsy shop or similar. At least that way I would genuinely have some money of my own.

I have a whole list of things to get sorted, savings, pension, life-insurance etc. We also need to re-visit our wills in the light of some complicated family related inheritance stuff that's going on. This is just the first step towards getting it all sorted really.