child Allowance

kidtechnical

Can someone shed some light on something a friend told me about? I've had a scoot about the board here and didn't find anything regarding it.

Friend called today and said she saw an ad in a paper some weeks ago about a child allowance that was available if we applied between Apr 2002 and Apr 2003 (for each child, means tested). Ad basically said that the allowance hadn't been well publicised and they were offering a no win no fee arrangement to claim it for you... she called Inland Revenue who said she's to write and they'll get back to her but they have a backlog about it.

Just wondering if anyone can point me in the direction of info re this?

KidT

onlyroz

Are you talking about child benefit (think it's about £77 a month for firstborn, then a bit less for each subsequent child) or child tax credits?

kidtechnical

No, neither of these things, she just said it was a benefit/tax allowance for kids that was available for a year and not well publicised, she said that you could get upto £1000 per child and she qualifies for both her kids (who are now 9 and 7, so would have been 3 and 1 in 02-03)... at first I thought she was talking about the one off payment thingy (can't remember the name) to get kids saving, but her's wouldn't be eligible for that and that was well publicised from what I remember.

She gave me a number to call, so I'll call tomorrow and post when I've found out more... my nose is just really bothering me and I was hoping someone on here could shed some light on it

Lunar_Eclipse

kidtechnical wrote: »

Can someone shed some light on something a friend told me about? I've had a scoot about the board here and didn't find anything regarding it.

I'm not sure what it is called, but I think you might be referring to the Child Bond (?) which is a one off £500 payment for all children born after a certain date (April 2002 sounds about right since I recall we just missed out) with another x amount (£500?) being paid years later (18th birthday perhaps.)

pinkpig08

If you do find out OP please let me know, as DS was born between those dates!

flea72

this was a tax break that was given for people who had children, which alot of payroll offices didnt know about or implement.

it was for people who had children between 1985 and 2003 - however if you didnt claim at the time, you only had until January this year to have your claim backdated, so you are now out of the time frame

Flea

kidtechnical

The 'thingy' I was referring to was the Child Trust Fund and I don't think it sounded like that as neither of her kids would have been eligable (only one of mines was and he was born 2003) what she was describing was something that could be applied for in 2002-03.

I will definately post more when I know more, even if it's to say I'm a plank and got the wrong end of the stick:o Hopefully it'll be good news

flea72

Yes, this is the Childrens Tax Credit, which was a tax allowance on your income. Your child had to be born between 1985 and 2003, and you had to be earning over £6k (only one parent could claim it though)

Unless the tax office have changed their mind, you only had up until January this year to make a backdated claim

Flea

kidtechnical

Thanks Flea, with it being the weekend I cant call myself, but my friend called last week and was told that she qualified, they had a huge backlog and she was instructed to write a letter to the tax office.

When I know first hand if this is happening then I'll post again.

hazelbunny

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=291626&highlight=parents+owe

pukkamum

kidtechnical wrote: »

Thanks Flea, with it being the weekend I cant call myself, but my friend called last week and was told that she qualified, they had a huge backlog and she was instructed to write a letter to the tax office.

When I know first hand if this is happening then I'll post again.

please make sure you let us know how you get on i've looked at the other thread link but it isn't up to date.