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.

This rule also passed me by OP. I luckily read a news article about it after 4 months or so, so the bill wasn’t too bad. They just made adjustments to the tax code the following year rather than asking us to pay it all. I don’t understand how the system works at all, why is it not automatic that you get notified once you’re over the threshold?! I could theoretically still be claiming this and not doing the self assessment and no one would know. The calculation is only triggered when you opt out of receiving it. If you don’t do that ever, then do they just not ever check?

Its not your fault OP. You were and still are entitled to that money. Either he's sharing wages with you in which case the payback is coming out of your joint financial pot. Or he's not sharing his wages with you, in which case you can keep claiming CB and he'll have to pay it back by tax return each year. You don't have to be worse off because he's moved in. If he doesn't want to share finances and act as a family then he shouldn't have moved in, at the end of the day you have a DC so it's not like two child-free people living together, where they might be earning unequal amounts but still paying 50% each and not sharing wages. It doesn't matter that DC isn't his. He moved in so in the eyes of the law you're now a family pooling resources, including financially, so if he's not doing that then keep claiming CB. You've done nothing wrong. Unless you lied and told him you didn't claim it. He should have ensured a discussion on finances took place before moving in just as much as you should have, so you both knew what's what.

Checking you're paying the right amount of tax is your responsibility.

yes we should have looked at my finances in detail. if only and we did, we wouldn't be in this mess. Hindsight. Our fault and we are owning it and trying to work it out together. Again looking for all those helpful, kind, suggestions that will give us info / examples of how this has been dealt with. Thank you for those that replied like this - 🙏

We spoke to them this afternoon and they said that they will go back 4 years. However we are not sure this is 100% true. Does anyone have any thoughts / info on this?

How did you find out? Do they know? If not just end your claim online you don't have to explain yourself

Is your husband registered for self assessment?

Whilst this might be true the higher earner has to pay it back I don’t think the OP is going to just ignore it and let her DP deal with it, she’d be a horrible person if she did considering she was the one claiming, he knew nothing about the claim and it’s not even his child! So I don’t think that comment will help her tbh

@Coconutter24 She kept saying I have to do this, I will have to pay the penalty, not “we”. I just wanted to make it absolutely clear that no penalties fall to her. Whether she wants to help sort it out or not is an ethical one, but legally it’s his responsibility.

How long can you claim child benefits if you don't get them paid into your account and they just goes towards your NI contribution?

Once we know the final sum I will be paying my oh, in order to pay off the debt. He will pay hmrc directly. It is my fault for not spotting the 2013 campaign with this new rule, when I should have opted out of cb.

You won't know how much you owe until you complete the self assessments (I'm assuming you've not completed any?). You may or may not be charged interest and penalties. You've already spoken to HMRC, what reason did you give them?

No, he would be a horrible person if he, earning £60k plus, forced her to cancel the child benefit and refused to pay her the equivalent cash.
Regardless of whether the child is his, he moved in and became part of the family, so he now has the responsibility.

OP - think very carefully, don't cancel the claim if there are issues in the relationship. This is for your DP to sort out.

He will owe the money not you!
Why did he think you weren’t claiming? Most people do!
And if the higher earner knows about it! Save the amount each month . If you earn that much surely filling in a tax return won’t be that hard!
If above limit just opt out to get the credit for pension.

It sound like you have separate finances.

Take a good hard look at the situation. He earns a LOT. How does it compare to what you earn? How much does he contribute to the household costs - is it proportional to your respective incomes or is it 50/50 (unfair), or some other arrangement? How does your pension compare to his? Do you own a house? Whose name is it in?
No need for you to answer, just have a good think and keep your eyes open.

I hope it is not the case that he is onto a very good financial deal living with you, whilst you are no better off, or even worse off.

Yep we are now editing the last 4 years of self assessments and then will see the outcome.
Reason. Wife did not know the rule and kept claiming. Dp did not check wife's finances.

Some incorrect comments above. It's absolutely not wrong to claim Child Benefit as the lower earner (or non earner) because it covers your own NI credits until the child is age 13. I'd like a state pension if it still exists when I'm 67, thanks.

But the high earner must do an annual tax return and we repay the money. This is what an accountant and HMRC tells us is fine.

Dont gaslight me and tell me what happened.

It was discussed, a plan was agreed. One person didn't do as was agreed.

I couldnt have paid it without knowing about it.

I assume this is your ex wife the way you bitterly talk about it? She wasn't inherently wrong to carry on claiming.

I don't see how it's fair to always say it's the higher who pays it back, maybe technically, but morally it's not fair for one party to claim and pocket it and the other have to pay it all back when they didn't receive it, possibly didn't know about it and it wasn't even for their child

"Pocket it"? Do you know how much CB actually is (not exactly tons) and it's only paid to those with dependent children, so obviously it has been spent on them! Paying the bills or buying groceries, anything that keeps the house going.

Weird goady comment.

You've did all you can for now. Hopefully they'll agree to waive some interest/penalty. As others have said, the final bill is likely not to be as much as you fear. Take it as a lesson learnt, once you've had this sort of experience you're far more vigilant with your tax affairs (I speak from bitter experience 😉😊).

Kindly, i find it hard to believe this passed you by... I have a child roughly similar age and this was literally all over the tv and social media at the time, it was honestly everywhere because there was a lot of outrage about it as it had previously been a universal benefit. Even if it didn't affect you it was EVERYWHERE because obv government do have to communicate a change like this exactly so people can't just claim oh sorry i didnt know 🙄

In case anyone reading here and getting the wrong information from pp (this is also relevant to OP going forward): you can “claim” CB to get the credit towards your state pension and tick the box not to be paid.

there is absolutely no reason to go through the rigamarole of claiming it and then paying it back via tax return.

and my dc just got their NI number aged 15, in anticipation of their 16th birthday, so there is no need to claim it just to ensure that happens too (another misleading statement I’ve seen on MN)

Dont worry too much about it. Yes, you will have to pay it back but they wont bankrupt you to get it. We were overpaid by £9k - DH was self employed and I could never work out what we were and werent entitled to so just left it with them. Eventually get a £9k bill from them.

Spoke to them and did and income and expeniture with them and agreed on £100 per month. They wanted to go for less but I insisted as I just want it paid off. It infuriates me that they make it so complicated that unless you have a financial background you cant work out what they/you are entitled to.

If I remember rightly if you offer a payment plan that will take longer than 10 years to pay off they will go through and income and expenditure with you

The main thing is to get in contact with them - dont hide your head in the sand.

Unhelpful. I didn't know. My friend also didn't know. Hence why I'm owning up to hmrc this week. If I'd have known, i wouldn't be in this mess 😂. I'd have cancelled payments long ago.