Child benefit help

[Lenny1987]

We have one child, 8 months old. I earn just under £50,000 but my husband earns over. I claimed it as I was told it helped the child to automatically get NI registered when they were older and it counts towards my credits whilst off work. However, I am unsure as to how we pay back the % we owe. My dh is self employed so already fills out a tax return - do we do it on there even if the child benefit is registered in my name? We asked my husbands accountant who said not to worry because his net salary is not £50k but as I know that is incorrect I am reluctant to take her advice on anything else!

Yes, you can pay it back via DH's tax return. This is how we do it: my DW receives the CB throughout the year, then when I do a tax return, there is a section in self-assessment where you calculate how much CB has been paid out in respect of your child(ren) and the amount to be recovered is added to my tax bill. (In my case, as I'm PAYE that results in an adjustment to my tax code).

Are you sure your accountant is wrong? If your DH makes pension contributions or has other allowable expenses, it may be that his income for the purposes of this calculation nets down below £50k.

I asked her to look at it in respect of pension contributions which would put him below the 50k and she said CB is based on net not gross income so there was no need. Thanks for the advice, really helpful.

CB isn’t based on net income, it’s on taxable income. Tax is a specialist job, some accountants don’t know much about it.