Childcare element coupled with childcare vouchers

adamzap

Hello all,

Long time lurker, first time poster. Hope someone can offer some wisdom

We have child 1, born in June 2013 and started nursery March 2014. No tax credits were claimed for this child as we were over the thresholds, but my wife did claim childcare vouchers through her work. Childcare cost was £40/day, 2 days a week so £80 a week.

We had twins, (child 2 & 3) in August 2014 and claimed for tax credits, as well as increasing the childcare vouchers around November last year to the max amount, as we had read nothing about it affecting claims. On the tax credits application we put my wife's salary as her full salary i.e. not subtracting any childcare vouchers from the total salary.
The twins started nursery (3 days a week) in August and our costs are now £336/week as the daily cost has gone up to £42.

As this is now over £1,400/month nursery costs, HMRC have naturally written to verify this. Part of the form says that they do not cover childcare which has been paid for by childcare vouchers... which as mentioned above we had no idea about! So now I'm worried that they will calculate that we have been overpaid and then of course we will need to pay it back.

It is an unfortunate turn of events and I want our situation to be put right, and thankfully the really high costs have only been going on for a couple of months so the difference may not be life changing. But I'm wondering if anyone has similar experience and can advise what might happen?

TL;DR claimed for child tax credit & childcare vouchers, will we have trouble on the horizon?

adamzap

Thanks for your reply, you've nailed it right there.

I did put exact p60 figures in, but did not see the part in the notes that you've linked to so included all childcare costs and haven't subtracted the vouchers. Oh well, as you say, we are going to respond ASAP. Just waiting on copies of invoices from the nursery. Hope they don't hit us too hard

Thanks again!