Child Benefit Tax Return

[WingingIt101]

I am one of the unfortunate people that despite HMRC taking my tax at source through PAYE and being a fairly straightforward earner - basic salary plus inclusion in a healthcare plan (around £500 a year on my p11d) and a relatively small annual bonus always paid in the April, every year, without fail I get a bloody letter telling me I’ve not paid enough tax and as such my tax code for the following year is adjust accordingly.

I have just had my first baby and my friends have said to apply for child benefit.
Sticking point is I am the higher earner in our house and I earn 52k. Plus the healthcare benefit and potentially an annual bonus that’s typically 2k. I put in the rough(ish) numbers to the .gov calculator and it said that I’d need to do a tax return for around £270 for the £1150ish in child benefit we would receive.
Obviously this would give us £8/900 a year and we would put it into an account for dd and emergencies for her. My concern is that I’ve never had to do a tax return before and HMRC balls up my basic paye tax every year so the likelihood of this going well and us not getting a big bill really makes me nervous.

Has anyone else been in a similar boat and done the tax return - is it easy to do?

Get an accountant to do one for you. They can be quite cheap (cheapest one I heard of was 40 quid but can be a little more for a simple personal one like yours, obviously I fair bit more for a business). They can also phone HMRC about them constantly getting your tax code wrong and advise why that might be eg in my case it’s always the health benefit that isn’t properly factored in.

I had to do one for both my husband and I one year. My husband's was because of child benefit. Tbh it was a complete pain in the arse and took ages. And I don't mind form filling etc. It was correct though and we didn't get any random excessive bills. The payment bit was very straightforward.

I found it quite straightforward. Apply for ID. (from memory this took a while)
Login - you need to do some sort of weird I'd check
Get p60, plug numbers in - pay difference if like me you never get round to doing it til Jan. You can opt to pay back via tax code if you do it before 31/12.

Yes apply for it OP, during Mat leave you won’t (I assume) clear your usual salary so the amount will change. Also do you contribute to a pension, that’s not included I think.

I’ve been storing my cb in a separate acc as this tax year is the first year I will need to do a self cert. I’ve heard it’s very simple, fingers x.

Just apply for it and then tick the box which says you don't want to receive it. You'll then still get the NI credits for while you're not working

Why wouldn’t OP receive it- she’ll still get a few hundred pounds she’s entitled too

It's based on taxable pay so you can deduct pension contributions. However as a higher rate tax payer it makes sense to do a tax return anyway to claim any other deductions you can like gift aid etc. If you want to pay a professional to do a tax return the first year and then you adapt it for following years you can but you wont get anyone qualified in tax to do it for £40, more like £150-200 for a basic personal tax return.

Onlyfools sorry misread salary

Thank you everyone - I’m rubbish at tax and knowing how to be certain my deductions are correct - many experiences of having to go between payroll and HMRC getting rings run around me!
I do contribute to a private pension so that’s good.
I would be subject to the same deductions in my mat leave year as I get a full year at full pay from my company (I know I know, extremely lucky!) but as the suggestion was made to store it separately ready to pay back I like that idea - we weren’t expecting to be entitled to any benefits and so said if we did get anything we would just put it in an account for dd anyway!

You get a full yr Mat pay??? Who do you work for?

wow! a whole year full pay! well done! again, curious; who do you work for?

I do my husbands tax return online every year. It is very easy. His only earnings are PAYE and he has no other benefits so I enter the figure from his P60 where it asks for that. The amount he has given in gift aid charitable donations where it asks for that. The amount I’ve received in child benefit (that has stopped now so won’t be on the next one). The calculation is then done for you. The hardest thing is getting all the appropriate log in details the first time around.

Self Assessment is really easy if your tax stuff is as simple as you describe. As long as you have your P60, P11d and details of how much CB you've been paid (even though they should know that!) then it's a simple job online. Definitely no need for an accountant to do it for you!

Definitely get it and do self assessment.

Like others have said pension contributions bring it down so I'm aiming for the £50k net sweet spot where I get the child benefit, smash the pension etc.

Only give to charity with gift aid and claim that too.

Married person's tax allowance if partner doesn't earn much. They have to do this though.

Also if you've got a personal tax account (which you need for self assessment), you can see and change your tax code as required.
Doesn't mean you won't get a bill at the end of the year though if it's not exactly correct but at least you're more in control.

Thanks so much everyone - I may we’ll be able to get myself to the “sweet spot” by upping pension contribution and at least I then see that again later!

Haha, I won’t say who I work for I’m afraid (spoil sport!) because it would be very outing. It is a traditionally very male dominated industry in private sector and my company is still 85% male so they can afford to offer it as a benefit as it attracts women to work there and address diversity but realistically they only ever have maybe 6 women on mat leave at any one time out of thousands of employees! They get their pound of flesh though!