Huge overpayment child benefit

[sarahjnm]

Hadn't realised living with £60k earner meant that I shouldn't rcve child benefit for my daughter. Only just realised. It's been 10 years.
Anyone else been in this situation? I'm guessing I pay all back and penalties too. Could be as much as £15k.
I'm feeling suicidal at the thought. Our family are struggling as it is with various other things.

Ah yes, sorry I missed that

This is only for finacial years going forward from when it started

Child not his, but as I understand it that does not matter. He will be thy one that pays it. Yes. But obviously it will be me giving him the money as its my fault.
Guilt is huge. Lots going on in the family this on top is awful.

No I know ignorance is not a defence

I don't think it's fair to lay this at your wife's door. There can be good reasons to continue claiming child benefit, including providing the non-working/lower income parent with a direct income of their own, and protecting their national insurance contributions while the children are young.

It's actually very clear that it is the responsibility of the higher earner to pay the tax charge.

From the gov website:

^Your partner is responsible for paying the tax charge if their adjusted net income is also more than:

• £60,000 and higher than yours (for the tax year 2024 to 2025)
• £50,000 and higher than yours (for tax years 2012 to 2013 up to tax year 2023 to 2024)^

If you knew she was claiming it then it was your responsibility to do the tax return and declare it on there.

The high income benefit charge started in 2013 so people should really know about it by now. Why didn't your dh know you were claiming it?

We owed about £3k as a bonus put my DH over the limit. This was about 10 years ago but we had to pay it back straight away. HMRC told us if we didn’t have the cash to put it on a credit card 😧

10 years is a long time for this to have gone on!! If you've been hiding that you receive CB from your DP then I feel sorry for him and you have deeper issues. But the onus will be on him to pay it back. I'm not sure he'll be pleased to hear this. A simple Google would have told you he'll need to pay it back. I'd get him to contact DWP immediately and explain the situation. Not sure what they'll recommend.

Learn to spell 'liar' before you start calling people that.

OP I would also say it's an unfair system as it's not his child. However the DWP view him as financially responsible for you and your child as you're living together so this is a joint problem not just yours. When you moved in together he should have supported you in making up the loss in CB. If he didn't offer this then he wasn't being fair. Completely depends what your finances are together and how much financial support he's given you.

🙄

Baby was born in 2012 and rule came in in 2013. In 2013 I was on a minimum wage salary so the rule passed me by. Nothing else to add to that. Only recently found our as a friend said they just realised too as her salary has gone up.
call me what you like
I'm only interested situations that people have had. Thank you for any helpful advice x

I've got a degree in Geology - Jog on!

he’ll have to speak to HMRC, you can’t do it.

This happened to me as well. I had to pay back over £8k. Luckily some of it was saved in the bank account they had been paying the money into it. The Benefit people were very good and apparently its more common that you think. Still had to find nearly 4K though..... they said we could pay it back gradually with interest but I just wanted to see the back of it.... so we borrowed the extra that we needed.

It’s on him to sort out but I agree, it’s a stupid system. I read an article about a family who fought this and won as they’d never had a letter to tell them they needed to pay back once over the threshold. Will see if I can find it.

Well go and crawl back under one of those stones you've been studying.

I imagine the majority of mumsnetters have at least an undergraduate degree.

@sarahjnm - you 'lost' the child benefit when you and your partners became a joint household. It was his responsibility to enter it on his tax return.

He should reimburse you for the lost benefit going forward.

No it’s not your fault. He must have ticked no to the question about CB. It’s entirely his responsibility. Why would he assume you weren’t claiming it? He will have to pay it back, not you.

She kept claiming because it didn't need to be cancelled. She was entitled to claim it and you then should have paid it back to HMRC out of your wages, via the tax return. It's set up like this so financially abusive husband's couldn't leave a SAHM with no money to feed and clothe the children. Women also get NI credited to them when claiming child benefit but not working, so it stops women with no financial means finding themselves without adequate state pension in old age. Obviously if you're sharing wages and she's working and paying NI then there's no need to do it the complicated way and it could have been cancelled like you say. But she didn't have to.

Gosh what a nightmare!
My husband is PAYE and completes a self assessment for the high income CB charge. We pay it all back in tax, and to be perfectly honest the only reason I haven't cancelled it completely is because it's far easier to fire off an online assessment (and HMRC auto adjust his tax code) than cancel it and worry about dates/inadvertantly over claiming and incurring penalties.
Essentially, when it comes to HMRC, my attitude is if it ain't broke don't fix it. And I'm of this attitude because on the (mercifully few) occasions I've been pulled up by them (wrong address once, wrong tax code once) they've been absolutely fucking ruthless.
Sorry - wish I could offer you some crumbs of comfort.

By the way, it’s possible for the lower earner to get the NI credits towards their pension without actually getting the money, to save the hassle of claiming, doing a tax return and paying it back. My husband earned over £60k when our first child was born so we put in a claim but opted out of receiving the payments. Much easier. (Assuming the woman doesn’t need the money directly due to financial abuse of course.)