Husband wants me to pay back half of child benefit

[Bakersdelight]

I’d like to get some impartial perspective on a situation with my husband. We receive Child Benefit for our two children. This gets paid into our joint expenses account. My husband changed jobs 5 years ago and his salary went over the earnings threshold. I’ve been telling him for the past 5 years he needs to contact HMRC and work out repayment via a tax return and then see whether to stop receiving it, or just pay it back each year. He’s finally done his tax returns (only because he realise he could claim some relief on his pension contributions). And has had to pay approx £10k back in Child Benefit. He is now saying I owe him half of this money because I have benefitted from it as it was paid into the joint expenses account.
I feel he is being unreasonable given the amount he is asking from me and the fact that I had been asking him for 5 years to sort it out. I would be interested in what others think.

Sorry to clarify are you saying you want him to 10k fully? And you feel this is reasonable?

It is both of your responsibility, as you both really should have sorted it out.

How do your finances work otherwise? Can the money be repaid from a shared account?

What would the logic be for:
a) allocating percentages owed to each of you
b) you having a lower percentage than him?

Surely you have joint finances and it is paid back jointly?

as the recipient you could have told them you weren’t entitled and stopped taking it or taken at the zero rate surely?

I had a similar situation.

We ended up divorced. Not because of this but the way he dealt with it was indicative.

If the family has benefited from it then yes you need to both pay it back. In proportion to your income though, so if you earn less than him then you pay back what is a proportionate amount, not half.

It's his tax return and his responsibility.

We had this.

We both paid it back.

It’s joint finances so a joint responsibility and even if he was very slack with sorting it out, you knew all along you weren’t entitled to it but still spent it.

You are jointly responsible. I don't see why you could not have contacted HMRC to stop the payments unless it was in his name and they refused to speak with you? I remember doing this many years ago and I'm sure it was a simple on line form that I completed.
You are equally responsible so should pay the amount owed from joint funds.

You both spent the money. If it was into his sole account, then I d say he pays it back.

But you ve spent some of it as well.

Do you have an income?

It’s on him. It will just be recovered from his salary anyway.

This happened to us too several years ago. DH paid it back. I would have contributed if he asked but he didn't. Is your DH in a position to pay it back?

It’s actually the responsibility of the highest earner. Also he is the one who claimed the child benefit

Yes he is in a position to pay it back and earns three times what I do

So you didn’t take spend the money when it was in the bank account despite knowing you weren’t entitled to it then?

I don't understand why the money couldn't have been put somewhere until he pulled his finger out.

Have you benefitted from the £10k? If so pay your share back. I can’t work out why you would think anything else is reasonable.

I would divorce my spouse over this. If they knowingly took money they weren’t entitled to and then refused to pay it back, it would be a dealbreaker for me. Not because it’s £10k but because it shows what sort of person they are and the lack of morals they have. It’s just not the sort of person I would want to be married to. If it was in an employment situation, it would gross misconduct with potential police involvement and a possible custodial sentence.

Why on earth did you spend the money when you knew you'd have to pay it back?

He’s been a complete idiot claiming it these last five years, it’s really easy to stop claiming it. That said, you’ve both been stupid spending the money each month rather than putting it aside. The repayment should come from your joint money/savings whatever. It’s not like he spent it on himself.

This happened to us but I just paid it back as the higher earner.

I think you should give him the money if you spent it.

If you have joint finances surely it will come out of your joint money anyway. That being said I would be pretty pissed off if he is both the higher earner and the claimant and he didn't sort it out. I am no sure why others think it was on you to set the money aside...

The money was in a joint bank account in her name. It was on both of them to set it aside.

If the money was paid into the joint expenses account then it comes back out of the joint expenses account. If there isn't enough money in the joint expenses account then you will (both, as it's joint expenses) need to pay more into the account in the way that you normally do. What would you normally do if you had an unexpected bill or electricity prices went up? Do that. If you (both of you) can't manage to pay in enough in one go, then work out how to do it in instalments.

It sounds like he is only being asked to repay what he was overpaid and not any sort of penalty. so, it leaves your joint finances in exactly the same place as they would have been if he'd sorted it 5 years ago.