Help! Being charged high income child benefit charge

[Oldtiger]

I just wondered whether anyone had been in the same position as this – today we got a letter from HMRC saying we owe more than £7000 in high income child benefit charge from April 2013 until now. But we haven’t received any child benefit! We last received it in 2012 after my second child was born it stopped because I remember the rules changing. I guess we’ll have to try the dreaded 0300 helpline number this week. If we’ve obviously had no deposit into our bank account do people think this would be easy to sort? Slightly stressful after Christmas and also my previous issues with HMRC have taken two years to sort out.

Phew. Thanks Talkin, and sorry for thread highjack.

Hopefully the child benefit people will be able to tell you where they’ve been sending the money OP. You’ll find it all waiting to give back to them.

You don’t get an annual statement for Child Benefit alone.

I phoned CB at 9am as they opened when I had queries and got through straight away they were helpful- try today before everyone is back in new year organised mode on weds?

I do think its pretty poor that employers were not giving their staff the heads up on this.
The PAYE team can tell in an instant if the tax code has been adjusted for this
Utter bollocks
I head up a payroll bureau and when we get a new tax code we are not told why it has changed

Why would it be employers' responsibility?? Your tax code only changes if you've completed a tax return before the end of October to have it reclaimed via your tax code the following year, but that's nothing to do with employers

It should not be beyond the wit of the HR team to ping a message to all staff on £50k or above to remember to do their returns in October so that Christmas does not turn into stress fest.

That is called looking out for the team.

Err I don’t think that’s a good idea - I work in an environment where people cover each other’s email inboxes and it would cause horrendous issues if people found out that others were on more than them.

Could they not just do a generic one that goes to everyone regardless of wage then with a reminder?

poppin
I wonder how many of the lower paid ones are women #metoo

Quite possibly, particularly at the higher levels. I aim to buck that trend if I can!

Oh blimey ! My post was a semi joke ;-)
Time to send that email .... or ask the bosses to justify why not

Butterfly if you call HMRC and explain you can get them to add it all into your tax code for next year instead so you pay more tax to cover the shortfall rather than having to come up with 7K all in one go.

I don't think they will do that for 4 years worth of CB. Maybe they will do a payment plan for you

gunpowder
Tax code adjustments are capped at £2000

Aah ok. Mine was for just a year of CB i think so I guess it was under £2K. Sorry for the misinformation. As a general rule I’ve found HMRC quite helpful though when I’ve made genuine mistakes and want to sort them out. (My tax is sometimes complicated and I haven’t always had an accountant.) Don’t know if my experience is unusual but they aren’t as scary as you’d imagine on the phone.

Gunpowder
They are not scary on the phone
but they are often not very accurate either

Yes I can believe that! If you can afford them I think good accountants are worth their weight in gold.