Overpaid childcare vouchers

[Rhayader]

We relocated abroad a few years ago with a company that DH had worked for for a number of years. Things went sour while abroad and they let him go and we had to return to the UK as our visa wasn’t transferable.

Today DH had an email saying his childcare vouchers account had a high balance, we’ve checked and they are still paying his childcare vouchers and have been since we left the UK.

He’s received no payslips in that time and there was no indication of this. We obviously haven’t spent the vouchers as we didn’t know we had them and we would be happy to give them back but the T&Cs say that isn’t possible. He’s going to email them today to let them know but will they try and get us to pay cash? I’m not working at the moment so we don’t have any childcare costs. It’s around £4k.

I don't have any relevant legal expertise, so hopefully someone who does can advise, but I believe that (a) childcare vouchers can be refunded, it's just that it's a pain in the arse to do so providers prefer not to. It can be the voucher provider (i.e. the third party company) that doesn't want to do it, but also your employer because they'd have to mess around with tax and national insurance and they don't normally want to. So if they are trying to get money back for themselves, not you, it ought to be possible. And also (b) childcare vouchers are normally paid on a salary sacrifice basis so they don't form part of your salary, you instead agree to get paid less (and therefore pay less tax) and they pay directly to the voucher company. In this situation where your DH has left the company, they therefore haven't paid him anything, they've paid the company.

What I'd be asking actually is: if you didn't need the vouchers when you left the UK, then they ought to have been paying him a higher salary instead of paying into the voucher scheme, and they might owe him some back pay.

Thanks @BarnacleBeasley when we moved abroad his UK contract was terminated and he signed a new contract with a different legal entities in another country (think: Company Name US instead of Company Name UK). So they’ve kept paying into this account for someone who isn’t even employed by them anymore - I’ve no idea how they’ve done the salary sacrifice on their end…

Is it possible that we might get a tax bill for this? It’s over several tax years now….

I don't think you could get a tax bill for payments they made by mistake to someone who wasn't your husband. It just sounds like their mistake, nothing to do with your husband, and nice of him to let them know so they can stop making it.

Thanks - hopefully they will just be able to retrieve them.

The attitude we have is “hey we’ve noticed you are paying this, we don’t use these and it must be an error so you should sort this out with the childcare voucher provider”

Hopefully they won’t get arsey about it - they really screwed us over with the relocation so we didn’t really want to ever get back in contact with them.

Would an alternative be to just contact the voucher provider and say 'this must be an error as DH hasn't worked here since x date' and get them to sort it out with the employer?

if you haven’t spent them they should be able to get them back from the voucher provider.
I had a ridiculous situation a few years ago where I received a debt collection letter for vouchers paid in error. I left a job but for some reason I carried on receiving vouchers for the next three months. I didn’t notice as I had a surplus of vouchers in that account, used it till it was 0 then moved over the spending the vouchers in my account from my new employer. I asked how it was possible to keep paying for vouchers from a non-existent salary - it’s salary sacrifice so no salary TO sacrifice!- but was told it was my responsibility to cancel them. Anyway I had to pay it back in cash. They told me had I still had the vouchers left if thar account they could have used them for the debt. Because my voucher balance was now from a new provider I couldn’t pay with that. Was very annoying!

That sounds really frustrating - fortunately we haven’t spent them at all so the full balance is there for them to collect if the voucher provider will let them.

@BarnacleBeasley yeah that might be an idea actually.

Childcare voucher help! I recently lost my husband to brain cancer. I am trying to sort out lots of our financial affairs and he was paying into the childcare voucher scheme. He has built up quite a lot however we no longer use childcare. Our children are 10 and 12years. I know the vouchers can be used for clubs and other activities. Is there any easy way of finding where they can be used. The government ofsted list only seems to show schools and nurseries. I would be really disappointed to lose the funds as they are quite sizeable. I have contacted the voucher company and they have allowed me continued access. Any advice would be welcomed.

I’m so sorry about the loss of your DH.
I don’t think there’s a definitive list anywhere of who does / doesn’t take them.
PGL take them so we’ve sent our kids on a couple of short breaks.
Some tutoring companies take them, useful for when they get to GCSE stage.
For holiday clubs, I’ve always checked when looking at what was on offe that they took vouchers. Many do, particularly the ones run by chains such as Camp Beaumont, Barracuda’s etc.