Childcare Vouchers: cut childcare costs by £1,000/year Discussion Area

Ama

helen167 wrote: »

Would I be better off with Childcare vouchers? I earn £9500, nhs nurse and pay £350 monthly to nursery for one child. Soon will have second baby. Please help.

It all depends on how much your household income is. I would say you would be better off going for tax credit instead based on the figures above. The maximum savings you can make on vouchers per month is £94 assuming you pay basic rate tax and 6% towards NHS pension. People on low income can get up to 80% of their childcare costs covered by tax credits. Go onto HM Revenue and Customs website and use their calculator to work out how much tax credits you would be entitled to.

hampshirebabe

Hi, I'm a bit confused about the £55 bit, is that how much in vouchers I'll get, or how much is taken from the wage packet? I'm self employed so cant claim the vouchers, but my hubby can. My childcare is £72 a week, so if we gets the full amount of £55 of voucher's will I get a voucher for £55 and have to pay the remaining £17? How much will it be costing him, what will he be missing, he's a basic tax earner?

sarmia

Hi,
Still finding these vouchers confusing! Can the amount you have vary every month??? BAsically I am think of asking my employer to pay my commision with vouchers there fore not affecting my basic salary, is this possible??? Would I therefore not pay any tax on my commission?? Before I went on maternity leave I recieved approx £250 - £300 (BFT) in commission.

Thanks

mikki-b

You should be able to claim back the money, however you will have to pay tax/NI on the returned money.

For those with childminders, I have had 2 childminders and both were quite happy to take vouchers, even though neither had taken them before. I should think all childminders have to be approved these days.

For those whose employer hasn't taken to the scheme, keep plugging in there. I spent 3 years nagging my last company (with union reps help) to do this, so much so that when they eventually caved in, I was asked to be the 'employee' representative on the panel to choose a voucher provider. Every time your employer comes up with a reason not to do it (costs too much or whatever, I heard most of them) go back to the providers and ask them to disprove it. You will get there.

For the two posters above. You have to have the same amount a month in theory, though I have heard some employers/providers will allow you to have different amounts each month, I haven't heard of anyone who does. My husband has £170 of salary a month taken as vouchers, but as our costs vary dependent on school holidays the amount we pay out varies between £100 and £250 a month. You work out what your yearly childcare costs will be and average it out, if its not going to be the same each month. When our costs were higher, we both had the maximum allowance which just covered our childcare costs. AS mu husband is a higher rate tax payer and I'm not, when our costs went down (start of school) I cancelled mine, (change in childcare circumstances counts as life changing event, so you do not have to wait until the end of the year. If you think you are going to have an excess, its worth planning ahead and cancelling your vouchers a month or 2 before so you can use up the excess and not worry about claiming back.

I hope thats helpful to someone out there.
The £55 When/week is the maximum you are allowed to take free of tax and NI, so this will be £35 ish/week from your net salary.

DeepBlue_2

Employers that part or fully fund their own childcare facilities are not limited to only offering a maximum of £243/month tax & NI free. They can offer an unlimited amount of childcare to their employees, before tax and NI, so long as the employee is not then working for less than the minimum wage. This is salary sacrifice rather than being part of the voucher scheme but the result is much the same if not rather better! I would imagine that anywhere with an on-site nursery/creche would be included, unless it is run entirely independently and the space is just leased out. This probably restricts the benefits to those working for big corporations, government, or in the childcare/education sector.

HMRC has lots of information that will help both employees and employers. Try http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childcare/index.htm . This booklet ("Paying for childcare - Getting help from your employer") is particularly useful http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/leaflets/ir115.pdf, and for those who receive Working Tax Credit, this calculator will help you decide whether you are better off having childcare vouchers or the childcare element of Working Tax Credit: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/calcs/ccin.htm click on "childcare indicator".

We operate a children's nursery in Brighton and the full time care of a baby costs not far off £900 a month. Getting tax relief alone on this would save a parent over £7,000 a year compared with a parent not using vouchers or salary sacrifice. Worth looking into...

Marty999

I looked into Childcare Vouchers a year or two ago. My employer does not offer them, they said they could do but it would affect the contributions to my company pension scheme so I would be worse off overall. Can this be right?

ramani7

mike3000 wrote: »

Both myself and my wife are self employed and are thinking about childcare for or 18 month old daughter. Only a couple mornings a week to give the wife a break.

My question is, can we claim the vouchers as neither of us have an employer as such?

I recently became self-employed and was told by the self-employed "helpline" that I cannot get vouchers as self employed people don't qualify. Obviously self-employed people never have children ....

lunny_2

Hi
I am just looking into these Childcare vouchers for my girlfriend and myself.
My firm does the wages for her company so it should all be fairly straightforward to sort out, but i wanted to clarify a couple of things.

Would i be able to claim (in addition to my GF) the max monthly amount as i am living with my gf and her daughter, as i effectively have joint parental responsibility over her (nothing legal of course)?

Would the 'vouchers' be as simple as them being deducted under a salary sacrifice scheme, and then that part paid directly to the nursery?

Thanks for your help

Guy

Woby_Tide

you can claim them even if you didn't ahve a child if you really wanted. Most schemes differ but I'm not sure any pay straight to nursery, i.e. ours go to an account that we can then set up 'voucher standing orders' from to validated nurseries, this allows us to amend the monthly payment if required or to control when you change nursery. Other providers may do it differently

Savvy_Sue

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this: There’s an article on the main site you might like to read that gives more information on this subject.

Plus I'm going to merge your thread into the previous discussion which may be helpful.