Childcare Costs discussion

yonny_2

can I ask for a little help please?:)

I pay £35 a month for my two to go to pre school for 5 afternoons a week - during the summer I will be paying 53.50 a week for them to go to a club for 2 days a week as I will be at work

What do I put down as childcare costs for tax credit purposes?

Im very grateful for any help offered
Thank you

marta1980

Hello I need help I start full time education level ² I'm singel mum and nobody dont want to pay for my son child care,help

britta44

marta1980 wrote: »

Hello I need help I start full time education level ² I'm singel mum and nobody dont want to pay for my son child care,help

I believe you can get ALG (Adult Learning Grant) which is around 30 pounds/ week. Do you work? Are you eligible for WTC and CTC?

Linda16

Getting tax credits for childcare is a bit of a minefield.
Different advisers on the helpline give different information.
My daughter is starting college next week, her partner works full time but through doing some work away from home and some weeks on nights (which is out of the ordinary) they have lost the working tax credit but still have the child tax credit.
Nursery fees for 1 child will be £118 week for 2 full and 3 half days, she was told on the helpline last week she would get £96 towards it, today the letter arrives saying £88 awarded.
I rang to query and was told maximum award would be £82.50! Left hand/right hand comes to mind.
You are entitled to up to 70% of childcare costs.
Some of the child care information is out of date, a child can receive 15 hours free childcare in the term after their 2nd birthday, you have to let your provider know that you know this as fact.
A couple can claim childcare if one works minimum 16 hours and the other parent is in receipt of carers allowance,this is not made clear and you have to let the advisers know that you know this also.

Bigstu07

Good morning all, newbie here.

I entered into a salary sacrifice scheme at my place of work to purchase childcare vouchers (Accor) for our 3 boys childcare costs. I paid £200 per month for the vouchers of which the nursery fees varied above/below this amount each month. Upon our eldest and middle sons moving into fulltime education, the monthly fees at the nursery reduced, but with myself working shifts and my wife working part-time (mon-wed) we decided to maintain the £200 sacrifice as during school holidays we would then use the out-of-school facility that the nursery offered. This was going along quite well with a slight surplus accruing in the nursery account.
When son No3 started full time education I reduced the monthly amount to £50 (to stay in the more beneficial initial childcare voucher scheme), with the accrued previous amount plus the reduced monthly payment this meant our account still built up - to a silly amount of approx £800. The nursery manager then came and requested me stop paying/buying the vouchers, I spoke to somebody at my employers HR dept who told me I could take a payment holiday with no penalties, which I decided to do. When the new tax year came around and we were still well in credit, we decided to stop the scheme.

We continued to use the nursery for childcare needs but on a significantly reduced basis and received basic monthly (sometimes not) statements of an opening and closing amount but no breakdown of expenditure, showing our account to be in credit but reducing all the time by a small amount.
In early October we received a statement showing us to still be in credit, so imagine our surprise and disappointment when we received a letter along with a fully itemised (full breakdown of attendence) statement, saying that the Nursery's 'First Steps' software package which works out their accounts had been adding £96.00 each month to our account. This amount was never illustrated on the statements we received, if it had we would have flagged it up immediately, and has gone on for over 12 months from the time that the nursery manager requested ourselves to stop paying into the scheme.
The nursery now say that we are actually £750 in arrears and understand that we may not be able to pay the amount outright but would like us to come to an arrangement to pay this amount off.
If I had continued to sacrifice my salary, then this amount from my wages would be 40% less due to my tax code and the error is not from my doing but from the nursery's system.
We NEED to use this nursery due to myself working shifts and my wife working part-time, so have to tread carefully with how we deal with this issue -ALL advice will be greatly received.

Cheers,

Stu
:money:

newchick475

Hi I just wanted to check if anyone else is experiencing difficulties with payment of childcare vouchers.

My husband joined the scheme in Sept after our new baby joined a local creche, since then it has been a recurring monthly nightmare in getting the money paid over from his employer to the creche. They have contracted out their scheme and it is typically taking two months from when the money is taken from his salary until the creche actually receives payment. The creche are now looking us to pay the fees again and make an advance payment to cover the backlog in monies owed from the voucher scheme.

As we all know it's expensive enough to have to pay it once, but twice is ridiculous

Is anyone else having this problem??

rpc

With all the voucher schemes I know of, the employer doesn't pay the childcare provider.

The employer pays (or agrees to pay, I think it is run on account) the voucher company. You then arrange the transfers with the voucher company to pay the childcare provider.

In my case, my vouchers are created before I get paid. About a week later, they are transferred to the nursery by regular payment.

Which voucher provider does your husband's employer use? They are probably the ones to speak to to find out the timeline, although they only create the vouchers when the receive instructions from the employer's payroll.

littomissdebbie

Does anyone know of any schemes etc to help with the initial start-up childcare costs? I need top get my son enrolled into a private nursery but most want 1 months fees in advance, plus a deposit & admin fee, which works out at nearly £500 Im a single parent, returning to work (after mat leave) part time with 2 children, i live in Scotland. Don't see anyway of saving up these initial costs, money is tight as it as. Thanks.

pfft

whmon wrote: »

There is a massive scam ongoing with the Children's aspect of Working Tax Credits that must be costing the country millions. I own a Children's Day nursery and recently discovered that an ex-employee was/is? claiming £1000 per month in nursery fees for her 2 children against my registration number (and having 3 foreign holidays per year with the proceeds). In actual fact, her 2 children rarely attended the nursery.

This is how the scam works; parents simply log on to the Ofsted website, click onto the details of any nursery or childminder they wish, record the registration number and then contact Working Families Tax Credits giving the registration number and details of their (fabricated) costs.

That's all it takes! After that, the money is paid into their bank accounts and they can continue to e.g share childcare between them as they work shifts or get grannie to watch the children for free etc. The nursery who's registration number they are using knows nothing about it.

I have owned my nursery for three years now. Not once, ever, have I been contacted by the powers that be to confirm attendance or even registration at this nursery. I am one small nursery owner in the North-East, I have no idea how many children are falsely registered against my number, no idea how many thousands of pounds per month may be being paid out through our taxes against my nursery registration number. How many in the country???

That's just plain wrong. Surely you would think its your registration number its your right to know how many are registered with you. Thats grim, i bet thousands of people are abusing this system, another example to fuel my benefit scrounging bleeders fire. It stinks i have 2 jobs, my husband works full time, we have 1 2 year old child and entitled to !!!! all!! However folk i know with pure kids n no jobs are raking it in! GRRRRR!!! My nursery fees are crippling me big time but my friend with NO job gets free childcare for her 2 year old at my childs nursery because she is on job seekers......hello.... she has no job she can look after her kids! Im working to pay for the chiold care she gets for free on the benefits i pay for!! Wrong indeed......rant over lol

xxjaxnexx

I never even thought to check if we are eligible for help towards childcare, since we both work full-time, until I read it in the MSE email this morning.
I am now a little annoyed by how this benefit seems to be worked out. If I put in our earnings in the estimator and select 60GBP for child care costs a week (which is what we are paying at the moment for 2 days with a childminder), it tells me we are not entitled to anything.
So out of curiosity I selected 90GBP (which is what we paid up until a couple of weeks ago for 3 days a week) and I was shocked to see that I would have been entitled to 32GBP! So not only would it cover the whole extra day, but 2GBP of the second day, too!
I tried 120GBP and 150GBP, too, with even shockinger results!
So if I take our daughter back to the childminder for that one day rather than having grandparents look after her, we would be better off???
Has anyone else noticed similar?