BUSY BEE VOUCHERS - Save money on childcare...

[Noisy]

Hi

Does anyone know anything about this voucher scheme? From what I have been told, your company deduct your monthly childcare bill from your salary. The Busy Bee people invoice your company and then issue the vouchers to your nursey - saving = you don't have to pay National Insurance and could save up to 10% of your childcare fees.

I am currently looking into it and wondered if anyone has any experience of the scheme...please let me know. Thanks.

Noisy, have you found out anymore? I've got a pack from busy-bees and there was a good article in the guardian's money section on April 27. Beyond that???

I get Accor nursery vouchers (www.accorservices.co.uk/childcarevouchers) from my employer to pay for DS's full-time nursery place, which saves me almost £50/month in NI contributions (and more next year when the NI rate goes up).

I'm currently having a bit of a battle to get the male-dominated company I work for to keep the scheme going though, as so few people take advantage of it - it seems that to be able to pay for fulltime childcare requires a reasonably high salary - so many mothers below (or only just above) the NI limit actually find that it isn't economic to return to work, while the vouchers are not of any benefit to those on significantly higher salaries due to the national insurance ceiling (as applies to most of my male colleagues who have nursery age children).

On point in your favour if you're planning to ask your employer to investigate these schemes is that the charges to employers are typically about 7-8% of the value of the vouchers I believe - so they still represent a saving in employers NI.

The inland revenue information relating to this is at www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/manuals/nimmanual/nim16100/nim16101.htm

There was a BBC Moneybox item about this quite recently - it's at
news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/audiovideo/programmes/moneybox/newsid_1972000/1972593.stm#Childcare Vouchers

The Daycare Trust (www.daycaretrust.org.uk/) has a bit of info on their site and there is also a helpline which you can call

Hope this helps.

Thanks, most people here fall into the lower tax bracket but earn too uch to get childcare WFTC so hopefully the uni will be interested!