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.

It’s ridiculous that he has been claiming it, not you, and then he didn’t file his self-assessment. That’s just really wacky.

In our household, I claim child benefit and Dh pays it back. But the money goes into my personal account. I consider it a boost to my income as the lower earner (Dh similarly earns 2-3x what I do). I mean I could stop claiming and Dh pays that to me directly, but this system has always worked.

I suppose if it went into your joint account, technically yes, you should jointly repay it, but in proportion to your incomes. Your Dh ears 3x what you do, he pays back 3x what you pay.

That said, I know my Dh would never even raise the issue. He’d just pay it because he has the money and it’s his own dumb fault.

Why on earth was HE claiming it when he earned so much more than you? Were you ever out of work whilst raising children? The whole point is that by you claiming it, it keeps up your stamp for state pension, so being in his name may have cost you some state pension.

He earns three times what you do, you've been telling him for 5 years to sort it, he's intentionally LIED on his Self-Assessment, as the form does ask this very question. So fuck him, I'd not be paying him a penny to sort out HIS mess.

Yes, "HIS" mess, because despite being in a marriage and him earning so much more than you, he still wants you to pay HALF, that's £5K to sort out the mess that HE created. Oh and HE has his own savings, with all of his bags of money from his big man job, yet you're supposed to be married?

This isn't a marriage.

Your husband sounds like a prick. He can pay the £10K for his own stupidity.

HE claimed it not OP it was HIS responsibility to do the tax return OP reminded him about it he ignored her for five years

Your system is even more bonkers!

I claim CB. DH has to pay it back in tax - that’s his issue because of his income. There’s no way I’d be paying this back.

I'd tell him no 🙄

He caused the problem so he should sort it

But dont you have joint finances? Do you work? x

You just have a really weird marriage to feel
you need to do that. What’s the point of claiming and then paying it back? Is your DH financially abusive?

What did it get spent on op? If it got spent on the kids and house then he should have funded his kids and basic life. I’d say 10,000 is an affordable reminder, tax fraud can get you sent to jail, and I’m not your accountant but I did remind you. I’m not repaying you money that all went on your children- why don’t you go take the clothes off their back and sell those?

I really don’t understand why the OP should ‘pay him back.’
Child benefit is for the benefit of their children.
Once he was over the threshold he should have stopped claiming it, but then he should have put an equivalent amount into the joint account. Why should the OP be out of pocket as a consequence of him getting a pay rise?

Not at all. But CB was introduced to support mothers. I claimed it before it was means tested and I’ve never stopped.

I pay 50% and funded both mst leaves of 12 months each from savings as only got statutory maternity pay

he was well within the earnings threshold when the children were born and for years after. I struggle with forms so he completed them when setting it up

You need to become a partnership. You are married, your savings pots belong to both of you. When you find yourself calculating to the penny between each other like this it really is time to have a bit of a rethink.

He paid HMRC back in full as soon as it was calculated. I will need to work out a payment plan to pay him back. The joint account just pays for household bills and things for the kids. We both put in a 50:50 amount each month

When you put it like that, yes

I don’t honestly know. We pay a 50:50 into the joint expenses account to cover expenses

A payment plan to your husband?! Are you going to start billing each other for everything you do then? Laundry, cleaning, diy, taxi service for the children, growing child, cooking dinner, night care of child etc...where does it end?

I really don't think any real man, husband and father would even think about this.

He wasn’t doing any tax returns. I told him he needed to. He’s done them now and paid the lump sum to HMRC.I feel upset because I was telling him he needed to worry it out for years. It was in his name.in now faced with finding a large sum of cash to pay him back.

So if I get this right: he claimed children's* hbenefits and he didn't file his tax return on time. He *earns 3 times your salary yet you pay 50 % of the bills. So he can save from his salary while you can't. And he has the nerve to ask you to pay back half!!

I would calculate the percentage you ought to have paid each month. If he earns 3 times your salary you should have been paying 25% of bills and him 75% So he owes you money.

This is so unfair to you @Bakersdelight . I'm a sahm so my dh pays 100%. Your dh is financially abusive and claiming that you pay 5k due to his cock up would be the last straw for me. Divorce and claim CMS - you will be better off.

Surely the children should pay it back, it was for them after all. Isn't there a chimney DH could send them up? You'd get half his savings, at least, if you divorced him you know.

Can you suggest how it should work? He always tells me I have to pay my way.

You should each have the same amount of money left over at the end of the month. Does he at least do 50% of the housework and childcare to pay his own way?

Sounds like any excess money ends up in his savings so I guess that's where the extra £10k went, so he can pay it back from there. Even if he says he put the CB in the joint account that just enabled him to put more of his earnings into savings, he's been putting that much less of his actual money into the joint account for 5 years.

He has effectively been putting money that didn't belong to him into the joint account for years (avoiding putting in his share and putting money in savings) and now wants you to pay him half of that, good deal for him.

I am not surprised you are upset @Bakersdelight Did you say that you funded both lots of maternity leave as well or have I got that wrong? Surely he could have helped you out with that as he earns 3 times your wage?!

As a previous poster has said it seems ridiculously unfair that he is expecting you to pay him back half the money when you are already paying 50% of bills each month, despite him earning so much more and he has the ability to accrue savings and you do not 😔

Yes I used my savings to fund both maternity leaves of 12 months as I was only on statutory maternity pay. I had to be very frugal as I needed to maintain my 50% contribution to the joint account.

there wasn’t such a big discrepancy in our salaries then. He was on about a third more than me then.