Childcare vouchers - can both parents claim £243 per month each??

[Ceebee74]

Or is the £243 per month limited per couple/household?

I understand it to be that you can both do that amount tax free (DHs work doesn't do vouchers grrrrrrr)

It's 243 each person, so a couple can each claim 243. Dh and I both used to claim.

That is great - DH's work is just in the process of setting the scheme up and by my calculations, if we can both claim, we should save another £50 a month.

Oh fab, I'm claiming this so if dh can too...

me and DH both claim the full amount and it is a help!

Taylor (or anyone else) - do you know if you can only claim upto the amount of your childcare - ours costs about £370 per month - although whilst I am typing, I realise that there is not much point in claiming more than that per month cos what else would you do with it???

if you are talking about the salary sacrifice scheme then yes both partners can claim it

Ceebee - you can claim more but it's only really worth it if you know that you are going to need to spend more on childcare in the future - you can 'save' up the vouchers if, for example, you are intending to work full time after a period of working part time, and it will soften the blow of the increased childcare costs.
We ended up with almost 2000 pounds worth of vouchers because we were both claiming them but it took months to get our nanny 'approved' so she was allowed to accept them..once she was approved she had a month paid entirely by voucher and our bank accounts gave a bigh sigh of relief.

Mill has hit the nail on the head in terms of why you may want to save your vouchers - our childcare costs are about £900 so it is well worth it for us

Both DH and I claim. We have twin boys at nursery and are saving nearly £2000 per year.

Yes - we both get the full £243/month, even though for the past 8 months our childcare costs have been negligable. But with ds2 going into full time nursery from September it'll mean we can pay entirely from vouchers for most of his first year.

You can both claim but if your DP/DH has his own business or is self employed you are not entitled to anything!

what are these vouchers of which you speak ???

They are government scheme to help towards childcare costs. You can claim up to £486 per month per couple against your nursery, nanny or childminding fees. If you go to www.childcarevouchers.co.uk - this will tell you more.

You aren't getting £243 extra, unfortunately, but you can get £243/month of your salary paid as childcare vouchers (normally not actual paper vouchers but an electronic payment to a specialist company) and not have to pay the tax on that £243 (you can get more than that paid as vouchers, but the tax relief is limited to £243). It's up to your employer whether they offer the scheme, though (although it actually saves them money too because of not having to pay employer's NI on the money either), and as Lolly68 points out if you are self employed then there's no tax relief on childcare.

i'm a childminder and get paid with the vouchers
most parents are in credit with this method so at the end of the tax year i pay the parents cash for what they are over and we start again