Child benefit WWYD?

[gothefcktosleep]

Need someone sensible to help me with this... my gut says no but my head says I am being short sighted.

Had a conversation with my DH regarding child benefits recently, he said he’d looked into it and due to my salary my tax would increase if we claimed but we then collect the benefit.

What would you do in this instance?

I can’t remember how much my tax went up by but it seemed material to me.

I suppose my question is, if you or your partner are earning + £50k a year do you still claim the child benefit or not?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

In the weirdness that is our system I 'claim' it but receive no money.
I need to claim it to protect my NI and for the kids to automatically get NI numbers at 16
I didn't get the money as it just over complicated the tax issue to get the payment and pay it back through my taxes and that leads to the potential for it to be fucked up and for DH & I to spend even more of our time going back and forth with HMRC - I'm self employed and DH is complicated and we have a salary sacrifice electric car so already had enough of back and forth over minor issues where they get the our calculations wrong, so anything that can be simplified is.

If you are in this threshold area, you could do what we did. We were self employed so income up and down. I initially refused the CB, but after a couple of years, and completed tax returns I then contacted the the CB office and requested back-dated CB. I got a lump sum of over £3k, which was lovely :-) If you can afford to wait, it seems the simplest way.

My dh earns over £60k so would have to pay it all back so I claim it but opted out of payment. It still protects the NI credits that way. If you earn between £50-£60k then you pay back a proportion of It so still worth claiming

Thanks all

Dementedpixie love that name!

Do you need it? DF doesn't need child benefit for DSis, because DSM earns enough without it.

wonky how do you claim it but not get the money? How does that work?

You register the child but click to opt out of payment

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.

Claiming Child Benefit also means your child will get theirNational Insurance number automatically shortly before they’re 16. They will not have to apply for one themselves.

Already getting Child Benefit

You can either:

• stop getting Child Benefit- sometimes known as ‘opting out’
• carry on getting Child Benefit andpay any tax chargeat the end of each tax year

If you are on 50-60k then you do get a percentage of the child benefit, and that is your salary after pensions have gone out, so if you are on the boundaries it is worth claiming, especially if say you earn 56k but pay 10% into a pension you would in effect only be earning 50.4k and so would keep most of the child benefit. It is also worth doing if one of you doesn't pay any national insurance even if the other person is on a large salary - you then just don't claim the money. I think it was a box you tick to say you are claiming the NI entitlement but not the money.

www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge

Well, this is fascinating. You learn something new every day! Thanks demented!

I thought the most you could get backdated was 3 months?

Marmite27
I thought the most you could get backdated was 3 months?

That's only when you first apply. There is a set of rules under "stop/starting". It's really hard to find information on, but you can claim up to two tax years backdated if you are already registered and had stopped but subsequently find out you were below the income threshold. I suspect they try to keep this quiet [hmmm]

Of course they keep it quiet wouldn’t want pesky parents claiming money they may not have otherwise!

Thanks for explaining