Directly contracted childcare

MountainMan101

I have £500 / month childcare to pay. Starting 3rd Feb - so for two months of this tax year. The child will be 9 months old.

I will be a basic rate tax payer for this year, and so could sacrifice £243/month. Can I make use of the unused allowance for the first 10 months of the year and sacrifice all £500 pounds and avoid tax/NI on it because it will only total £1000 in the tax year?

HMRC couldn't answer it for me - apparently it's an employer not employee question.

morgani

Not 100% on whether you can pay a backdated lump but the obvious issue I can think of is minimum wage. Salary sacrifice cannot take your salary below NMW.

There are ways around this if you are an office holder of your own Ltd Co as you will not be subject to NMW and you could contract directly with the provider.

MountainMan101

Minimum wage is not a concern, I am within a few pounds of the higher rate for this tax year.

My understanding is that with Vouchers (which my wife will use) she could have started accruing them straight after the child's birth and therefore had 11 out of the 12 months of this tax year saved ready to use in an electronic voucher account. And with some you can back-date.

Alternatively, is there a way to claim back the tax via self assessment - something else I have to do for the first time for this tax year.