Child Benefit

[justdontknowwhat2doo]

Last tax year through various chickens coming home to roost I earned £52,000 & stupidly didn't chuck that last £2k into a pension and so I went into the higher tax band for the first time in my life.

In the summer I adopted a child and I applied for CB as my income for the current tax year is likely to be more like £7k in statutory adoption pay.
I'm single and no other money coming in, child is pre-school age so as soon as I can I will get them a nursery place so at least I can earn something - but unfortunately it will be nothing like I earned last tax year.

I haven't heard anything about my CB application, I did write to explain that me being a higher rate tax payer was a one-off and the tax year before I became a parent.

Am I entitled to anything based on the fact I am not earning more than £50k currently? Or will they just use last years figures and that's that?

You can claim child benefit regardless of how much you earn, it's just that if you earn over £50k you have to start paying some of it back, on a sliding scale up to if you earn £60k you pay it all back. They will pay it to you regardless of what you earned last year.

Thanks @PatriciaHolm, I guess they will let me know?

They won't let you know, you are expected to do a tax return and they then tell you how much you owe them.
We didn't know about this rule, and we got stung for a couple of years worth of tax when they got in touch to let my husband know he owed a fair amount because of this.
I believe they work on the current tax year that you are getting CB for but I am no expert. I would ring them and ask, we have always found them to be very helpful over the phone.

It’s based on pay during the tax year, so if your CB started (or is backdated) to summer 2023 then as long as your pay doesn’t exceed £50k for the 23/24 tax year then there’s nothing for you to pay back.

In future tax years if your pay does go over £50k after pension contributions then you will need to do a tax return to pay back some or all of the CB you received during that tax year. You can opt out of receiving the CB payments at that stage if you’re likely to keep having to pay it all back.

I may be wrong but claiming child benefit - even if you end up having to pay some of it back - is worth it for NI ‘stamps’ which are linked to claiming the state pension. It means that your child rearing years count towards pension eligibility in your later years.

If you just want the NI credits you can claim child benefit but opt out of receiving the payments - then you get the NI credits but nothing to pay back. It’s only worth doing this if you would have to pay back all the CB - if you would be able to keep part of the CB then receiving the payments still makes sense.