Childcare Vouchers/MoneySavingExpert.com Discussion

Former_MSE_Archna · 17 October 2005 at 6:47PM

This thread relates to the Childcare Vouchers article.

Click reply to discuss.

dadrock · 18 October 2005 at 11:16AM

Your purple savings table says its based on weekly costs. Should that say monthly costs?

I use them for £200/month sacrifice via busybees. Its all pretty straightforward. Their web-based software is a bit clunky.
Sometimes we have extra care and when we pay the nursery at the beginning of the month I pay the odds by cheque.

We have just one child at nursery for 4 mornings a week. If we needed 5 full days a week the saving would be pretty neglible I think. Our nursery charges £31 a day for under 2s. If you had say 2 kids there all week then the £50 a week cap wouldnt help much. They should raise it.

hex2 · 18 October 2005 at 6:43PM

I have just convinced my employer to do this - not least because I have small children and am the HR Manager. If you get in touch with Busybees they send a really good employers pack out and they do chase it up competently and professionally. I told our board that it was cost negative and that any profit would make a contribution to the uncosted admin element and they gave me the immediate go ahead.

Well worth chasing your employer on this as most do not know about it. The other two similar government salary sacrifice save tax schemes are for computers and commuting pedal bikes - less popular mind you.

leftieM · 18 October 2005 at 9:46PM

My employer introduced a salary sacrifice scheme which applies to workplace nurseries and gives tax relief on the whole sum. We fought for ages to get it introduced - only for said employer to raise the childcare fees by the amount that we would have saved!

shirlyn · 19 October 2005 at 12:33PM

My workplace don't offer it at present and wasn't keen on the
idea they said people can claim WFTC.
I've contacted busy bees and asked them to contact my
employer to try and presuade them.

Spendless · 19 October 2005 at 3:05PM

We use them for daughter to attend nursery once a week. I'm going to college in Jan and little girl will be going to nursey more often, so it's going to be a great help to us in reducing costs. We don't qualify for help via tax credits, so I''m really happy with this idea and that hubbys employer offers them, though I too would like to see amount raised from £50

arethusa82 · 19 October 2005 at 5:28PM

Perhaps this is something Hex2 could answer. My employer will not introduce it as once you have entered the scheme and sacrificed your salary, there is no automatic right to go back to your original salary level should you no longer need the childcare vouchers. The inland revenue site states that this is a matter of employment law and not tax law. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/specialist/salary_sacrifice.pdf

sooz · 19 October 2005 at 5:38PM

anyone have any idea how to do this if self-employed. is it poss. other half self employed, but usually is contracted to work for one company...or if i'm self employed can i give these to myself?

IT'S NOT FAIR....and much stomping of feet :mad:

hex2 · 19 October 2005 at 7:01PM

arethusa82 wrote:

Perhaps this is something Hex2 could answer. My employer will not introduce it as once you have entered the scheme and sacrificed your salary, there is no automatic right to go back to your original salary level should you no longer need the childcare vouchers. The inland revenue site states that this is a matter of employment law and not tax law. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/specialist/salary_sacrifice.pdf

What you do is complete a salary sacrifice for a specified period of time. It should clearly state that at that point in time you revert to your original salary of £xk. I am not sure if this was mentioned by the childcare pack or the stuff about tax free computers, but as long as both you and your employer sign it then it is legally binding. I would do it on a renewable six monthly basis. I will have a look at work and see if there is a sample one I can post a link too. The more barriers you can remove for your employer the better chance of success.

I fired up my work laptop and had a look at the Busybees stuff. they say that 'the employee must complete a salary sacrifice form agreeing to vary their terms and conditions of employment. Each employee will need to indicate how many pay periods are covered by the particular form they have completed.' They then provide an example only document that shows months the salary is to be deducted from. Cant link to it as it is on the e-mail they sent to me. I wouldn't be entirely comfortable with the form they have suggested - not clear enough that it is a purely temporary arrangement.

richone · 19 October 2005 at 7:03PM

I have seen that it is possible to save up to 38% off nursery provision via salary sacrifice, saving £5,000 pa on fess of £1000 pm, one scheme is called teds the link is https://www.teds-uk.com

I have been trying to persuade my employer that it works as is worth doing, but is taking a while as I work for a big FTSE100 company... :cool:

arethusa82 · 20 October 2005 at 10:48AM

Now my employer is saying that this scheme will affect my contributory pension.....it seems to me that instead of our personnel department taking the initiative, they are leaving it up to individuals like myself to do all the leg work before they will even entertain the idea. Working for a large University, I feel this is rather a disappointing attitude to take.

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