Childcare Vouchers/MoneySavingExpert.com Discussion

Woby_Tide

as a higher rate taxpayer it should be worth it yet, though you should check as others say how it affects your pension contributions or any other limits that could be affected on a higher wage

sorry to hera about the nursery owner having trouble, the nursery we use were quite recpetive of ours and said the company we were using had been quite informative and let them know by e-mail what we were doing etc. Each month our 'vouchers' go into a special online account, then the 'vouchers' are directly credited to the nuresries bank account as cash. No redemption or vouchers as far as I know. Company ours uses is Care-4

leafton

Hi there, this is my first post. Having read the article, I contactes personnel only to be told that teachers are not eligible to take part! Does anyone know of another way that I can save?

Thanks

Please help!

kev7dags

Hi in the article it states that the MOD participate in this scheme. I am a member of the armed forces and my personnel dept say they do not operate this scheme. I have rang the MOD and no-one there could tell me if they are in the scheme. Where did the info for the article come from that said MOD were part of this scheme. It seems a really good way to save on child costs as my wife is training to become a nurse and we dont get any childcare costs because of my "massive" wage.

Thanks Kev

telly-addict

Woby_Tide wrote:

No redemption or vouchers as far as I know. Company ours uses is Care-4

We get to use the scheme through Aviva and they use Care-4 to administer the scheme. We have found Care-4' s administration to be rather lacking. Are they any good at paying out to nurseries? We have had a lot of hassle just getting them set up on the scheme and adding their bank details. I just wondered if this was a one-off or par for the course.

Justjules_3

Could anyone tell me if/how I can get childcare vouchers if I'm self-employed.

I will eventually employ people, but at the moment everyone I work with is freelance until business builds up a bit.

Could I set myself up to run the scheme if I'm 'Trading as' rather than a limited company?

Thanks

SammyD_2

Bilk wrote:

Ok, I feel like I am getting ready to kick my self her. My employer bought in this scheme over a year ago but I was told as a higher rate tax payer it was not worth me doing this! So just to be clear...is it worth if for me?

Thanks Bilk

It is more worth it than if you are a lower rate tax payer (see Martin's table)...the point is you effectively are receiving some income tax free which is then paid to the care provider. If you pay more tax you save more money.

Personally, I think the whole thing is a shambles. Both my husband and I have a salary sacrifice for the vouchers. Only we work for different companies. His company is with Busy Bees which I find cumbersome to say the least. My company is with a much more slick operation (although still not brilliant). But this means that our childminder has to deal with two different providers and gets paid three ways - from Busy Bees, from my company's provider and then most of the money we pay comes from our bank account.

Why should our childminder have to have the extra admin headache?

Also, I know that employees at Department for Work and Pensions miss out - they don't participate in the scheme, but they are "looking into it". What a disgrace. If the government can't even provide the scheme for its employees, why does it think small employers should as well?

It seems there should be a much simpler way of doing it, and it should not be "optional" for employers to provide it. Some small employers really struggle to help their employees out, and then others (like the government) choose just to put it into the too hard basket. The money is a great benefit (especially if you do not have to pay astronomical London childcare costs), but there is a real cost in time and money in the cumbersome scheme.

SammyD_2

telly-addict wrote:

We get to use the scheme through Aviva and they use Care-4 to administer the scheme. We have found Care-4' s administration to be rather lacking. Are they any good at paying out to nurseries? We have had a lot of hassle just getting them set up on the scheme and adding their bank details. I just wondered if this was a one-off or par for the course.

Since we are naming names, my employer is with Care-4. I have had hassles with them too, mainly due to the cumbersome software system they have. But generally they seemed fairly efficient. I also have an understanding childminder! Make sure that once you do your sacrifice you then log onto the system and list out the payments you want made. Unhelpfully you can't just tick a box stating "until further notice" so you have to manually enter each payment. This meant when we were on holiday for a month my childminder stopped getting her weekly pay as I had only put a few months of payments on. Very embarressing. I should have checked, but, you know how it is!

leftieM

Bilk
Under the old voucher scheme, which offered NI relief only, it wasn't worth getting vouchers as you were only saving 1%. That changed in April so your information, at the time, was correct.

LazySaver

There's 2 things to note about these vouchers which have made it completely pointless for us:
1. You have to pay in a fixed amount and commit to that until the end of the financial year (or possibly a full year) or a 'Life event' but (as has already been mentioned) you cannot reclain any credit. As children now get (some) pre-school paid from the age of 3, you need to be able to stop paying (or change payments) before that happens (Which is fairly unlikely). Note that, if you are already paying for your child to go to pre-school, you can't claim that they are suddenly going to school at 3 (ie use the 'Life change' getout)!
2. Many schools ask for fees in advance and you can't run the vouchers 'in debit' - ie you have to have already paid enough in to cover the fees.

Put these 2 together and you have to be both very astute in your planning and quite lucky to make it worth doing.
Of course, if you are unfortunate enough to need full time care from a very early age, or have a number of children at the appropriate age, then it probably is worthwhile (especially if you are in the higher tax bracket).

Alleycat

Lazysaver, which vouchers do you use? We use Busy Bees and I can either complete a form for one month's vouchers or for a set period of time. When that runs out I can just complete another form. Maybe its worth speaking to your employer about changing the scheme they currently use?