Child Benefit tax return

[mikyccity]

Hi,

I have recently found that we are not eligible to have child benefit because of my high earning. I rang child benefit department two weeks ago and stopped child benefits.

Child benefits are paid to my wife but i am the only earner in my family. Who supposed to file a tax return, is it me or my wife?

Also, would we get tax penalty on returning child benefits we owe to HRMC? My pay went up in Jan 2017.

Edited by mikyccity on Saturday 23 February 19:51

[mikyccity]

PurpleTurtle said:

Also be careful about ‘stopping’ child benefit. If your wife isn’t claiming it, you are losing out on NI credits which will detrimentally affect her state pension,

Totally ridiculous system.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jul/28/bewa...

I didn't know about this.

May be worth getting child benefits and then return it at the end of the year.

[mikyccity]

JapanRed said:

This. Read Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis’ site for more info.

You may lose out to the tune of thousands of pounds if you stop the credits. Me and my wife both earn over £60k but still receive the credits. Just pay them back at end of the year

Can i ring them and start getting benefit again ? or its too late as its already been stopped.

[mikyccity]

I am just worry about penalty charges.

[mikyccity]

supersport said:

The other problem that although there was a lot of noise at the time the policy was introduced there hasn’t since. So that people who have been dragged or recently moved into this bracket have no idea.

It thought there was a move to be more understanding of these people rather than just fining them. Could be completely wrong though

This came out in Nov 2018 https://www.ft.com/content/719d40ce-dddd-11e8-9f04...

[mikyccity]

theboss said:

When you claim CB you can elect to have your eligibility recorded but not to actually receive the money - therefore you get the state pension / NI credit but without the hassle of receiving the payments then paying them back via the tax charge later.

Pension contributions are the best way to deal with this if you can spare the cash.

This is interesting.

[mikyccity]

I do have another question here, Does HRMC send letters to everyone asking if there are effected by tax charge? I never got any letter.

[mikyccity]

I will call CB department and inquire about it.

I am really hoping i won't get penalty and i am happy to return what i owe in one go.

[mikyccity]

CHARLESBERG said:

OP- have you filed a self assessment before?

How old is your child?

I ask because I missed the self assessment deadline due to a misunderstanding. I had a letter through stating my total pay is x (under the allowance). Months later, I had another letter my total income was y (over the allowance). I can’t remember the exact wording but the first one was my pay, the second figure included a company car ‘benefit’ figure. Hopefully Eric will be able to confirm exact wording.

I would recommend sorting out ASAP, if you’ve not done it before it will take approximately 3/4 weeks before you can access system and late charge goes up daily.

I got a letter saying they thought I might need to do a self assessment and I had 3 months from that date (as I had never done one before). Needless to say I had it sorted the next day!

No i have never filed a self assessment before.

My kids are 12 and 8 years old.

I have already registered myself for self assessment, just waiting to get an activation code. I have spoken to someone in HRMC today and he said deadline date has now moved to June instead of Jan. He said there will be no penalty charges. Let's see.

I never received any letter from HRMC. They did send out the letters to many people in past few years saying you might be effected by child tax or whatever it is called.