Tax to repay - Child Benefit

Author
Discussion

Scotty2

Original Poster:

1,265 posts

265 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
Has anyone else just received a letter from HMRC or DWP telling you to pay back around £3k Child Benefit as you just exceeded the limit for qualification?

I knew it was coming and thought my income was going to be just below,but no, I earned slightly more so BANG we'll have all your child benefit back!

Best bit is the letter states: "We cannot tell you the amount you need to repay by the end of January, but we will impose penalties and interest on the outstanding sum..."

Why not just allow everyone 2 kidsworth and that's it?

Just been watching "Benefits Britain" so am also wiping steamed urine from the ceiling. I may be bitter that it goes to some of them!


GroundEffect

13,819 posts

155 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
I thought no one on PH got benefits? And if you did, you were a filthy failure in life?

RobinOakapple

2,802 posts

111 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
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Surely having children should be it's own benefit?

BoRED S2upid

19,641 posts

239 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
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Don't watch benefits Britain there should be a Chanel for all these shows that us working folk can delete.


aka_kerrly

12,415 posts

209 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
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GroundEffect said:
I thought no one on PH got benefits? And if you did, you were a filthy failure in life?
In all fairness you can earn double the UK average wage and still be entitled to claim child benefit... that's madness in my opinion!

OP: this should help https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-calculator

Eric Mc

121,774 posts

264 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
Rather than start being smart alecky about benefits in general, perhaps we should try answering the OP's question.

What tax year are they talking about?

Was you or your partner's income greater than £50,000 in 2012/13, 2013/14 or 2014/15

Was you or your partner's income greater than £60,000 in 2012/13, 2013/14 or 2014/15

Do you or your partner complete Self Assessment tax returns?


hornetrider

63,161 posts

204 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
BoRED S2upid said:
Don't watch benefits Britain there should be a Chanel for all these shows that us working folk can delete.
They get their own perfume too? mad

miniman

24,826 posts

261 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
Eric Mc said:
Rather than start being smart alecky about benefits in general, perhaps we should try answering the OP's question.

What tax year are they talking about?

Was you or your partner's income greater than £50,000 in 2012/13, 2013/14 or 2014/15

Was you or your partner's income greater than £60,000 in 2012/13, 2013/14 or 2014/15

Do you or your partner complete Self Assessment tax returns?
In my case, yes greater than £60,000 in 2014/15, no to Self Assessment.

sidicks

25,218 posts

220 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
miniman said:
In my case, yes greater than £60,000 in 2014/15, no to Self Assessment.
Surely you have to be doing self-assessment at that sort of income to ensure you pay the right tax - on investment income, for example??

Alex

9,975 posts

283 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
Means-tested benefits are evil.

GroundEffect

13,819 posts

155 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
aka_kerrly said:
GroundEffect said:
I thought no one on PH got benefits? And if you did, you were a filthy failure in life?
In all fairness you can earn double the UK average wage and still be entitled to claim child benefit... that's madness in my opinion!

OP: this should help https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-calculator
I would have assumed as I'm pretty-much on £50k that I wouldn't be entitled. That is silly. No kids though so I'm no leech wink

Maxf

8,402 posts

240 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
sidicks said:
miniman said:
In my case, yes greater than £60,000 in 2014/15, no to Self Assessment.
Surely you have to be doing self-assessment at that sort of income to ensure you pay the right tax - on investment income, for example??
Most people I know on that or a fair bit more don't do self assessment!

sidicks

25,218 posts

220 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
Maxf said:
Most people I know on that or a fair bit more don't do self assessment!
No wonder we have such a massive deficit....

Corpulent Tosser

5,459 posts

244 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
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Alex said:
Means-tested benefits are evil.
Care to explain why you think that ?

dogbucket

1,200 posts

200 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
Scotty2 said:
Has anyone else just received a letter from HMRC or DWP telling you to pay back around £3k Child Benefit as you just exceeded the limit for qualification?

I knew it was coming and thought my income was going to be just below,but no, I earned slightly more so BANG we'll have all your child benefit back!

Best bit is the letter states: "We cannot tell you the amount you need to repay by the end of January, but we will impose penalties and interest on the outstanding sum..."

Why not just allow everyone 2 kidsworth and that's it?

Just been watching "Benefits Britain" so am also wiping steamed urine from the ceiling. I may be bitter that it goes to some of them!
It is a sliding scale of Child Benefit reduction between the amounts of £50k and £60k. It is not a case of just going a little over and losing it all. If your income for last year was higher than £50K after pension and other tax free contributions you should have done a self assessment, and they will reclaim the overpayment of Child Benefit via your tax code (for PAYE I guess)

XM5ER

5,087 posts

247 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
Maxf said:
Most people I know on that or a fair bit more don't do self assessment!
Really, I thought it automatically kicked in once you go over the high rate threshold. I suggest you submit a selfie, that way CB is counted as taxable income, that way you get to keep 60% of it.

Nick Grant

5,409 posts

234 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
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I've been caught on this too, wife got the benefit payed to her I forgot about it, didn't put it on my return as I had never even seen it or knew how much it was. Now a letter has come through. This is the first time in my working life that my tax return has had to refect something that someone else got, bizarre. Wife doesn't work.

russ_a

4,568 posts

210 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
If you earn above £50k and recieve child benefit then I thought you had to complete a self assessment.

I believe that the money must be paid back by the 31/1/2015 or you get fined by HMRC.




Eric Mc

121,774 posts

264 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
miniman said:
Eric Mc said:
Rather than start being smart alecky about benefits in general, perhaps we should try answering the OP's question.

What tax year are they talking about?

Was you or your partner's income greater than £50,000 in 2012/13, 2013/14 or 2014/15

Was you or your partner's income greater than £60,000 in 2012/13, 2013/14 or 2014/15

Do you or your partner complete Self Assessment tax returns?
In my case, yes greater than £60,000 in 2014/15, no to Self Assessment.
You're not the OP but I'll answer anyway smile.

This area is about to hit the fan big time I can see.

If a person earned over £50,000 or £60,000 in the years 2012/13, 2013/14 AND 2014/15 (current tax year) and they were receiving Child Benefit in those years. They were not entitled to the full level of Child Benefit.

If between £50 k and £60K - they are entitled to some Child Benefit but not all.

If over £60K they weren't entitled to any.

If you were receiving Child Benefit in those years and exceeded those limits you had two choices - contact the Child Benefit outfit and tell them to cancel the payments OR contact HMRC so that you could start filling in and submitting Self Assessment tax returns so you could repay the overpaid Child Benefit through the Self Assessment system.

If you opted for the latter, the Self Assessment (SA) returns will have taken care of everything.

The problem is that there is a substantial number of people who have been dragged into the SA system purely so that they can pay back the Child Benefit.

In addition, there are many who SHOULD have contacted HMRC in order to sign up for SA and never did. The first tax year affected was 2012/13 which should have been submitted by 31 January 2014 and 2013/14 - which should be submitted in 8 days time. And now, of course, we are most of the way through 2014/15.

Those who SHOULD have applied to complete SA return and didn't could face sizeable penalties for "Failure to Notify" and "Late Submission" as well as interest on late pay back of the overclaimed Child Benefit amounts.

It will be interesting to see how all this pans out - especially with the election in May.



Bullett

10,873 posts

183 months

Friday 23rd January 2015
quotequote all
russ_a said:
If you earn above £50k and receive child benefit then I thought you had to complete a self assessment.
Nope. You can just opt out of receiving it.