Child Tax Credit - think I have been overpaid!

[jennymac]

My work started the childcare voucher scheme last year and I have only realised this year that when declaring my child care costs last year, I put down the wrong info. It is pretty confusing but basically our child care costs were £930 a month. When we went into the voucher scheme it saved us £140 a month meaning we were then paying a total of £182 a week (this is the figure I put on the child tax form). Now though, having read all the info again this year for the renewal, I realise I should have put down £105 a week, as we pay £486 between us in vouchers through the salary sacrifice scheme and £445 comes from our account to the nursery.
If we have been overpaid, will we have to pay it all back straight away or will they just not give us any credits for a few years? It is all such a pain as the kids are going to be looked after by a family member from Sept anyway so we would have been informing HMRC that the childcare element was no longer applicable.

Best bet is to talk to the Tax Credit Office about the error straight away. Also run the new numbers through this tax credit calculator to see by how much it affects the result. Then you should be able to see if and by how much you've been overpaid and you'll be better prepared. I understand that there are different ways to pay back what you owe ranging from you sending a cheque to them halting payments for a few months.

That is strange - when I put in the information, it comes up the same amount due whether I enter the figure of £182 or £105 a week.

Not necessarily strange. Probably just means that the end figure (earnings less childcare costs) doesn't put you into another banding for calculation purposes. If it's the case that your entitlement is the same then you could probably wait until the next declaration form and put in the new number there.