High Income Child Benefit Charge

[MotherinaWhirl]

We've had a letter asking us to check if we need to pay this charge for 2019-2020.

I don't think we do, but don't want to get it wrong and get fined so just wondering if anyone who is a bit more au fait with this can please confirm I'm doing it right?!

His gross salary on his P60 was around £52,000 but am I right in thinking we can deduct his pension contributions from that total? I'm assuming this is the bit on his payslips with says "Pension Salary Sarifice Employee", which adds up to just over £5000 for the year and which reduces his income to about £47,000.

So I can carry on claiming CB without him having to pay any back?

You are correct, it is calculated on his gross income minus the amount of his own pension contributions in the tax year.

The phrase is "Salary before tax (with pension contributions including under net pay arrangements deducted)" - which means gross salary before any taxes minus any Employee pension contributions he has personally made via his pay slip.

The Employer pension contributions are ignored for the calculation.

Thank you! That's a massive relief, I totally panicked when I saw the letter.

As the previous poster said, pension contributions have been deducted from the gross salary, i.e. the £52k earnings is after the £5k salary sacrifice.
So you would have to pay back about 1/5 of your child benefit.

@ForensicAccountant, I didn't think that's what @SillyOldMummy was saying though? I'm pretty certain the £52,000 is gross salary before pension contributions.

P60 figure already has pension contributions deducted if it's a salary sacrifice scheme

Agree with PP’s. If Sal sac scheme its’s gross salary after pension conts.

Any other sources of income?

My P60 has my income after pension deductions...

Surely your husband knows what his salary is though? When he was offered the job was he offered £52k/yr or £57k?

I think it’s after too.

If you put in the person's details to the self assessment online, it often comes up the amount you need to base it on as it's been received from the company already. My husbands came up exactly the same as his P60. He earned £52000 ish and we have to pay £294 back. Don't know if that helps

@hilbil21 is that based on one child (if you don’t mind me asking) I earn a similar amount and mine was £603 to pay back with two

Yep one child x

If you’ve had a letter it’s likely you owe something. It’s not an easy process to do so I would get on with it now as we had to wait for codes through the post and it’s to be done by the end of the month.

Yes, good point @radioband should have said that on my post.

@MotherinaWhirl ... The deadline is the end of this month to get a tax return filed and pay anything owing. You’ll be fined if you miss the deadline. Registering to do it means waiting to be sent codes in the post which takes a fair few days so you really do need to get a move on (have you only just had the letter?)

If he pays his pension by salary sacrifice then the P60 figure is already after pension contributions, so you can’t deduct them again and he’ll need to compete a tax return/repay a portion.

You’ve missed the deadline (31 December) for having it paid back via his tax code, so will need to pay the full amount owed.