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

bamgbost

McN.. doesn't sound like to me like theres an issue

daeargwr

My partner and I are about the put our child into nursery with fees of around £8000 per year. I've used the calculator online and selected 'couple with both parents employed' which suggests the vouchers are better for us.

Am I right in thinking the calculator assumes that both employers offer the vouchers when making this calculation? My partner's employer doesn't offer the vouchers.

So am I right in thinking that means the new scheme is better? As we could both pay into tax free childcare account to save £1600, whereas with vouchers our saving would be ~£930 (as a basic rate taxpayer)?

bamgbost

Yes. Sounds like the new scheme would be more beneficial to u, with high childcare costs.

onlyroz

McN wrote: »

Husband and I are both signed up with Edenred to receive £243 pm each in vouchers. I have been in the scheme pre-April 2011 and husband joined post-April 2011. I have been a HR taxpayer on and off over that period, and am now definitely HR. My husband has always been BR.

We made full use of our vouchers whilst our youngest was at nursery (c£11.5k pa), but since starting primary school in 2016 our childcare costs have dropped massively (c£2.5k pa) and we now have almost £6k of vouchers sat in our Edenred accounts.

We are looking to reduce the value of the vouchers we take each month, say to a nominal £10 pm each, until the surplus is used up and then increase back to a level which meets our demand. We don't want to exit the scheme.

What would be the consequences of making the reduction on those lines?

Cheers.

You should have protected rights and so if you drop the voucher value you should be able to increase them again in the future (although check with your employer because some restrict the frequency with which you can make changes).

Also note that you can spend the vouchers on holiday clubs including things like PGL - so you could for example send your kids on a tax free skiing holiday.

londonkiwi

I want to sign up for childcare vouchers before the March deadline. I have a limited company. What does my company need to do to setup for vouchers? Any recommendations for a voucher provider (costs, fees, etc)?

Paparika

londonkiwi wrote: »

I want to sign up for childcare vouchers before the March deadline. I have a limited company. What does my company need to do to setup for vouchers? Any recommendations for a voucher provider (costs, fees, etc)?

decide which childcare voucher company you want to use and contact them, we won't what costs are as they are individual to the company and CCV company. Although you are leaving it very late, it may be too late. Only one way to find out

shfu

Hi, Hoping somebody knows the answer to this please...!

We currently use the voucher scheme to pay nursery fees. Our little one is 3 so entitled to 30 hours free childcare. I reconfirmed our details yesterday (as your supposed to every 3 months) but today I received an email saying thanks for signing up to a Tax-Free Childcare account and that our account is ready to use. I never signed up to this as we don't want to swap!! Are you automatically signed up to an account with the 30 free hours? I never noticed it on my Gov account before when I've reconfirmed?? Hoping it doesn't affect our use of the voucher scheme..!

JackRussell

I'm hoping someone can tell me which option we're best going for based on our current situation as depending what I read and where, I get different results.

Due to age of our little people, things will change in May this year (introduction of pre-school & #2 starting nursery), so for this purpose I'll base it on that;

• Parent 1 is HR fulltime (member of employer voucher scheme since 2016)
• Parent 2 is BR part-time (member of employer voucher scheme since 2016)
• 2 yr old with annual fees of £6,950
  (will get 30hrs free in 5 mths time)
• 1 yr old with annual fees of £4,680
  (will increase to £6,950 after 12 mths time)
  (will get 30hrs free in 24 mths time)

Currently we both put £250 per month away in vouchers.
(I know the limit for BR is £243, and less for HR, but it just makes our lives easier to have them in one place and not get a tax break on anything over the limits)

So with all that in mind, are we best sticking £250 each away every month, or flipping to the new scheme?

Is it me or has the government made this excruciatingly complex? :mad:

Paparika

Those who have left it to the last moment to decide between Childcare Vouchers and Tax free Childcare.

Try this link to help you make the decision.

https://www.giveyourselfachoice.com

JackRussell

@Paprika - I dont think it's a case of everyone leaving it to the last minute, for some such as myself, its the fact that our circumstance have changed considerably (extra child, redundancy, re-employment, now HR).

Surely out there, is a site where you type in your details and it says "Option one is best"? I took a look and the link but there still isnt a definitive answer. They look at scenarios which you can't use to make such an important decision.