Am I the only person in the country who didnt know about child benefit?!?!

[KimmyLB]

Hello

I just found out today we could have been claiming £20 a week for my son who is almost 17 months old, and they can only backdate it 3 months.

I had previously checked on the stupid, unhelpful gov.uk website about our eligibility for benefits but we weren't eligible for anything as we arent a low income family. Not one midwife, health visitor, birth register official, friend, family member, ANYONE mentioned it to us. I'm so angry with myself for not knowing what everyone else just somehow seems to know for some reason. Why dont they give it to your automatically when you have a kid? Why dont they tell you? Apparently it is all in a bounty pack at the hospital. well I'd been awake for 2 days when i have birth and was so exhausted i couldnt walk to the toilet and then I had 5 days in hospital trying to get baby to breastfeed... so had more important concerns than reading through a bounty pack full of adverts!!

Anyway i just wondered if I'm the only one. I feel like such an idiot and we've lost out on £1000 which would have been very very helpful

Claiming it would also mean the child gets their NI number automatically at 16. If the person who claims it doesn't work then it helps with NI credits up until the youngest child is 12.

Everyone can claim it but if one of you earns over £50k you have to pay some back until at 60k it is all paid back. If you earn over £60k you can claim it but opt out of payment so there is nothing to pay back but that's what helps with NI credits/ child gets NI number automatically

But it also means you have to do a tax form

If you get the money, yes, the higher earner needs to register for self assessment and declare it on a tax return. If you opt out of payment you don't

I got a form from the midwife when she discharged me and then was reminded by lots of people (health visitor, GP etc) to complete it. I was also offered forms by the registrar I think!

Exactly, which is why opting out seems sensible to me.

I refused all bounty packs and still knew about it!

DH now sometimes earns over £50K so he has to partly self assess and repay some of it. We have to keep getting it though as I am not a SAHM and I need it for national insurance/pensions contributions.

I would only opt out of payment if one person earned over £60k as you still get to keep some of the money up until then. Depends how much time and effort doing a tax return would take I suppose

I’ve met many unemployed people who don’t know Universal Credit is and has replaced unemployment benefits. I think where have you been for the last 7 years and it’s been published in the media often enough

My husband earns over £50k but less than £60k so I thought we'd have to start paying some back but it's only on taxable income so by time his massive pension (and I guess childcare vouchers) are deducted we don't have to pay any back - not quite as simple as the £50k and £60k figures suggest.

It is on the interweb
www.gov.uk/child-benefit/how-to-claim

I'm surprised you haven't heard of it! But you've got another 15+ years ahead where you'll be able to claim it. So at least you have found out now.

Unless as PPs said, you or your partner earn too much (only needs one of you).

It might be surprise to some of the pps but I’m the high earner and earn over 50k and I’m the mum (not always the dad is the breadwinner !)
And we claim it. You need to repay tax back on the benefit. You’ve got the info here www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge

If less than 50k then no need to pay anything. This is on personal salaries and not both of you added up

At least you realised a lot quicker than this poster from a couple of weeks ago.

It's one of those things that's probably just about common knowledge unless you are new to the country, or perhaps from a wealthy family where the money is trivially small.

I know about it because when I grew up, I remember DM going to the Post Office each week to take the money out. It was a very important part of the household income and generally something given to and controlled by the mother in a family, in an era where most mothers didn't have paid work, to ensure they had money to feed their DC at least, if their DH was prone to spending family money in the pub or at the bookies.

I remember going up to collect the family allowance. It was a paper booklet that had bits to be signed before you got the cash.

Didn't you get a letter and form in your Bounty pack after birth?

Claim it for definately. It's yoursby right, invented so mothers had some income. However if you are on income related benefit it may be clawed back, still, worth having as it gives a reliable income, and contribution to your pension if you don't work. If on high income it is taxed

If you don't claim , register anyway, then you still get ni credit

You're right, awareness isn't up to standard for this. I only found out about it through my sister in law telling me. I thought all benefits were for people claiming benefits etc, but it isn't. I initially ended up claiming for the wrong thing, child tax credits! When I had an appointment at the job centre I quickly realised something wasn't right, I managed to cancel that the day I filled out the required info.
It's quick and easy to fill out the online form tho. So get it sent off. You hear from them pretty quickly. £80 a month isn't a lot but it's better than nothing isn't it.

I still don't understand how people don't know about CB.

It's like not knowing that the UK has a Royal Family or police stations. They aren't in your conciousness all the time, and no-one overtly tells people about them, but somehow, everyone just knows.

Yes i think you might be!

I already knew about it, but the form is in your bounty pack you get at the hospital.

My mum told me, and i googled and it always came up

"Missingstreetlife

If you don't claim , register anyway, then you still get ni credit"
This often isn't needed! It's these sorts of assumptions that set women back imo

it has been around for many years, and until a few years ago was almost universally claimed. There have been many articles in the press about changes to child benefit in the past few years and the unfairness of the 50/ 60 k limit. There is a form in your bounty pack at the hospital and virtually everyone claims it.

The bounty pack just had free samples of products and nappies in and leaflets about pampers etc, and the paperwork was just about registering the birth, I'm sure I would have noticed if it had information in there about child benefit!!

Neither of us earns over 50k a year so we are eligible.

My parents never talked to me about their money and salaries when i was a kid, they seemed to think we shouldn't know about that stuff! Now in hindsight i think i remember hearing about child benefit many many years ago but i had totally forgotten, and with Tories and Austerity assumed there was no help for families unless you're on the bread line!!

Oh well, I've obviously been living in a little bubble! Not many of my friends have children yet and my brother has one child but isnt particularly communicative, so these conversations just dont really happen in my day to day life.

Luckily we did know about tax free childcare so havent been missing out on that one!

Definitely worth feeding back to them. Not sure how I knew about it, I just did.

@RedWineAllMine You wouldn't have an appointment at the Jobcentre for tax credits so I've no idea what you were trying to claim!