Tax credits or childcare vouchers?

[alkar]

I am going back to work in November after mat leave and I don't know if we will be better off claiming child tax credits or busybee vouchers. Does anybody know how to work out which is best please.

childcare vouchers are not income related - everyone is eligible, providing the scheme is offered by their employees.

The childcare vouchers are offered by both mine and DHs employers so we know we can get them but we have been told you can't claim both vouchers and tax credits. I want to know which one we should claim to save the most money?

For me doing 21 hours, with childcare ctc worked out better than Busy bee.

hth

How did you work that out quitequiet?

sorry, didn't know that, not eligible for ctc

I contacted BB. They explained how much I would get back.

I went on ctc calculator and it worked out to be more.

Who / what is BB?

We claim them both - nobody has told us you can't do both.

I thought you had to earn less that £5000 for any benefits to be affected by childcare vouchers but i think there are different schemes in operation. can you ask your HR dept?

iwouldgoouttonight interesting I never thought of that.

BB = Busybee

You can do both but you have to declare your notional salary if you are also claiming the full cost of your childcare. (ie you can't give the income figure less the £243 pm)

I think it makes a difference at the lower end of the income scale if you are getting an amount for childcare specified as childcare on your WFTC award.

Thanks for all the advice. I rang BB and I can claim ctc and the vouchers so it looks like we'll be doing that.

Be careful claiming both, if its not declared properly you can end up with a huge overpayment.

You can only claim assistance from CTC on the amount of childcare you pay over the voucher amount - ie if you get £300 of vouchers and pay £50 you can claim upto 80% of the £50.

If you qualify for CTC, in most cases you are better off with just CTC alone rather than both.