HI CB Charge - I'm not the parent.

[Abaacus]

I live with my partner and her son, who lives with us the majority of the time. We own our home and have fully combined finances.
We both work, but I have a high-paying job and am likely to be promoted soon, which would put me over the Child Benefit threshold.

We're prepared to stop claiming Child Benefit to avoid the High Income Child Benefit Charge. That’s not a huge issue financially, but I do have a concern: if we stop claiming, I worry that the child’s biological father—who is involved, but only when it fits around his work schedule—could then start claiming it himself. That would mean I’m effectively covering the cost while someone with far less day-to-day involvement receives the benefit.

Has anyone been through something similar or have any advice?

I think he'd struggle to show HMRC, who administer Child Benefit, that he is the main carer/responsible parent.

You don't qualify so it is what it is. If mum isn't claiming, then dad can claim. It's £100. Whether he claims or not, you are still covering the cost. I would be focusing on child maintenance & making sure he's paying that - not much else you can do

You can ‘claim’ it but not receive the money.

Although I would always claim it, stick it in a high interest account and pay it back at the end of the year personally.

Don’t end the claim. Keep the claim going but don’t receive the money.
Tell your partner to call them up and ask to opt out of the payment, but to keep the claim. This means that she will still receive the nation insurance credits if she ever takes time out of work, means she can continue to claim child maintenance from her ex easily without him saying he gets the child benefit so is the main parent etc, and it just helps in any disputes with the ex if she needs to prove she is the main parent.

Keep the claim open but opt out of the payment.

It's less about qualifying for it or not and more about if I have to pay the High income Child Benefit Tax Charge if someone from outside my household claims it.

If your household isn’t claiming it you wouldn’t have to pay the HI charge

Your partner can continue her claim but opt out of the payment. If she's the primary carer and it's easily proven she'd still retain her claim in the event the ex challenged it.

Thanks for the advice, I'll have a look into doing this. It just blows my mind how complicated this gets and I don't even have kids.

What? Why would you pay the tax if someone outside the household claims it? Do you actually think that if the child’s father claims CB then you will have to declare that in your tax return?
I’m speechless. That’s just stupid.

That’s a bit harsh. It’s very complicated and pretty unclear until you do a lot of research. Considering the potential situation and implications isn’t stupid.

You say that, but I would have to pay Child Tax Charge for a child that is not mine if my partner was to claim Child benefits. So thinking that this scenario is dependent on and individual Child Benefit claim rather than Household isn't far fetched.

You can make the claim but there's a box to tick to opt out of actually receiving the money. The claim is then registered for admin purposes but you don't have to worry about it in your tax return, there is nothing to repay.

I suspect the main purpose of the 'claim but don't pay' option is to allow the NI credits that go with CB to continue.

No, it isn’t. Everything to do with it says your household.

Do you think every single mother with a high earning ex is claiming child benefit and their ex is paying the tax back? Apply some common sense.

Um… your partner is in your household. That’s why. Nothing to do with it being the child. It’s your household. Obviously.

www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge

You may have to pay the High Income Child Benefit Charge if you or your partner have an individual income that’s over the threshold and either:

1. you or your partner get Child Benefit
2. someone else gets Child Benefit for a child living with you and they contribute at least an equal amount towards the child’s upkeep

It does not matter if the child living with you is not your own child.

Nowhere does it say household. Furthermore, this proves my point.

Just opt out of getting the payment. I'm sure it's something you can do online. The ex wouldn't know that you weren't getting the money.

https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-charge/stop-child-benefit

It is, but @Abaacus 's concern was that if the mum doesn't claim, the dad might, which would lead to OP effectively funding their partner's ex to have a more comfortable lifestyle, which I can certainly understand would rankle and I think this option would enable that.

Just opt out of payment - your partner should receive it anyway

As a side note... make sure your 8ncome is actually too high. There are several deductions such as pension contributions and it tapers between £60k and £80k.

I would think that's probably to stop non-resident parents claiming it and paasing it on to the resident parent, to avoid the high income charge. So yes, probably best to keep the claim open but at a nil rate.

That's it precisely, the paying of Child Benefit Charge is neither here nor there, Its the mere fact that I could be in a position where I'm forced to pay my partner's ex to look after his own son part time.

That’s for parents living in two households, not for the new spouse/partner of someone with a child and an ex.

There is zero situation where they are going to come after you for the child benefit high income charge. That doesn’t happen.

I don’t know how you’ve managed to find that information and get wound up about it but you never found the “claim but don’t receive the payment” option which is just far simpler than the panic you are having over a non issue.

You're very contradictory. Also you're the only one getting wound up here. All I've done is layed out a very real scenario which is taking place and advice on what to do. Earlier you were saying this is per household and not an individual claim and now your defence is that the link I sent is for parents in 2 different households. Have some consistency please.

Now I appreciate that you made me aware of the "claim but don't receive payment" option as I was unaware of it.

However with your current logic your suggestion is now redundant.

If your statement is true that :

"There is zero situation where they are going to come after you for the child benefit high income charge. That doesn’t happen."

Then your suggestion of :

"claim but don’t receive the payment"

Is redundant as my partner should be able to claim the full child benefit without a High Income Child Benefit charge being applicable to me.

The High Income Child Benefit Charge is widely documented to be applicable to non parent partners and not unique just to parents.

"It does not matter if the child living with you is not your own child."

The issue I am seeing here is that if the father does take more child care responsibility and then gets a decent claim to take the child benefits, in the way the rules currently work I would have to pay him for looking after his own son which is wrong. Fortunately with the claim but don't collect payment option we can avoid that situation.