WTC and childcare

flea72

having probs working out my weekly childcare, now that i am getting the nusery vouchers as dd is now 3yrs old, and nursery costs vary per month, depening on which days fall in the month, so sometimes its a 5wk and sometimes a 4wk month - then nursery is closed for so many weeks for holidays, etc.

do people just work out how much nursery would be if they went 52wks a year, and not notify tax cedit office, of holiday weeks, as its two weeks here and there, etc, and not the 4wks they say you have to notify them of?

also as the nursery vouchers are for 11 weeks every term, and nursery runs over this, there is always a bit extra to pay, some terms

as present i pay £13 per session, dd attends 4 sessions per week, but get nursury vouchers amounting to about £100 a month off my bill - then she attends a playschool where i pay £6.20 per session, again she goes twice a week, but i get nursery vouchers for only one of the sessions, as the additonal one, takes me over the 5 session limit

so how would i go about working out how much nursery fees i pay per year, as its so varied?

flea

Spendless

Sorry I can't answer but I just wondered something.

By nursery vouchers are you talking about the funding children get after their 3rd birthday?

I thought you could only use them with one childcare provider, even if you weren't totalling your 12 and a half hours.
It's what I got told when my son was 3.


He attended private nursery 3 morning a week a 5 hour session each time. I got funding for half of these session. 7 and a half in total but I wasn't able to use the 5 hours he wan't using at a different place.

Has this been changed (he's 5 now)?.

flea72

you get 5 sessions of 2.5hrs each (roughly equates to £7.50 per session funding) - so yes, your son would only get 7.5hrs help per week, if he only attends 3 sessions

but you can use the sessions wherever you choose, and mix and match them with different placements - that has always been the option, whoever told you, you had to use them at the same placement was wrong

loracan1

A few months ago, my youngest started getting the childcare grant for over-3's and of course that meant I would get less in tax credits. My eldest has after school care once a week and goes to a holiday scheme in the summer holidays.

I rang up tax credits to clarify that I was okay to work out the average annual childcare and they said that was fine. Worth you ringing to double check though.

sarahlouise210

Flea....are all your childs sessions taken while you are working?? You can only claim help with childcare through tax credits if the childcare is to enable you to go to work. In my own case my son attends a private nursery for two full days while I work and 3 mornings pre-school on days I do not work. The days I do not work do not count(although they can be "funded".) In a situation like this it is best to have funding on days you do not work and use tax credit childcare allowance for the days you do! If you work throughout all these sessions it is very complicated to work out as you say!

flea72

ive read through all the literature and it doesnt mention anything about only getting help with care whilst you are at work - all it states is that to claim, you have to be working at least 16hrs a week

if push comes to shove, hrs wise, my works hrs are more than the hrs i send dd to nursery, but yes she is at nursery, a few hours a day, whilst i am not at work, due to my shift pattern

Savvy_Sue

I can't answer about the nursery bit, but I can confirm that if you don't use childcare consistently throughout the year you can total the costs and divide by 52. I was only using childcare for one child in school holidays and it worked out to something very silly and low but that was the figure to give them.

Spendless

flea72 wrote:

you get 5 sessions of 2.5hrs each (roughly equates to £7.50 per session funding) - so yes, your son would only get 7.5hrs help per week, if he only attends 3 sessions

but you can use the sessions wherever you choose, and mix and match them with different placements - that has always been the option, whoever told you, you had to use them at the same placement was wrong

Thanks.It wouldn't have made any difference to my son as the other place that he attended did not have the funding.

My daughter is 2 now and qualifies for funding next Easter. I'm going to ask again at the nursery and playgroup she attends as I was thinking I would have to choose between the two as to which she got the funding at.

EDIT-I've asked today at daughter playgroup and they were under same impresion as me. So I rang manager at the nursery who says I can have the funding at different places as long as it doesn't exceed 12 and a half hours. Thanks a lot I wouldn't have known this without your post. This is going to be really helpful next year for me.

irs101

do people just work out how much nursery would be if they went 52wks a year, and not notify tax cedit office, of holiday weeks, as its two weeks here and there, etc, and not the 4wks they say you have to notify them of?

and

if you don't use childcare consistently throughout the year you can total the costs and divide by 52. I was only using childcare for one child in school holidays and it worked out to something very silly and low but that was the figure to give them.

This is one of the hardest areas of TCs and, frankly, is a bit of a mess.

There are various ways of calculating it, which can be found here. This has some worked examples, but I'll pull out the important rules here.

If you pay weekly and pay the same amount each week work out your average weekly costs by adding together your weekly costs for the last four weeks and dividing the total by four.

OR

If it is less than 52 weeks since you started using childcare, you should work out what you expect to spend on childcare in the next 52 weeks and divide that by 52.

OR

If you have just arranged a childcare provider and have not started to pay them work out your average weekly costs by estimating what you will be paying each week.

So you don't have to report an average for the year, you could report a change each time your costs change (because of school holidays etc). But there are a couple of other rules that come into play.

1) The change has to be for £10 a week or more.
2) The change has to be expected to last for 4 weeks or more.

The other rule that comes into play is that if your costs reduce HMRC will carry on giving you your previous higher amount for a further 4 weeks.

So this creates a choice for people who only have school holiday childcare. Lets say you pay £50 a week and there are 13 weeks of school holidays. Your average weekly costs for the year is £12.50. You could give HMRC this number.

Alternatively, you could report the changes as they happen. But because Christmas, Easter and half-terms are less than 4 weeks, these costs are not reportable. So you can only claim for the summer (6 week) holiday. BUT you will actually get 10 weeks of benefit, because they will award these costs for a further 4 weeks beyond the end of the summer holidays, even though you have no childcare costs in those weeks.

So, if you're in this situation, your probably thinking that you should just report an annual figure of £12.50. Well, for most people that would be true. But for others you can play the system to your advantage.

For a family with one child in this situation, if you earn £21,500 or more, you won't benefit from reporting these childcare costs. But if you earn between £21,500 and £25,000, you could report an average cost of £50 for the six weeks in summer and get some additional tax credits plus get the 4 week bonus.

I hope that makes some sense. Obviously I've given a specific example, but the basic lesson is, if you have school holiday childcare and are benefiting from the childcare element (you get more than the basic CTC of £10 a week), just report an average annual cost. If you don't, try reporting any childcare costs of 4 week or more as they happen. You might get a surprise bonus.

irs

Spendless

irs- A friend of mine works 4 days in term time 2 days school hours, 2 days using a childminder.
In school holidays she reduces to 2 full days (16 hours) and her 2 children go to the holiday playscheme instead of childminder.

At the beginning of the year the holiday playscheme put up its price from £16 a day to £20 (25% rise). She said she couldn't claim because of what you've mentioned the price increase didn't apply for 4 weeks -due to most school hols being 1 or 2 weeks long.

Should she report this price increase for the 6 week school summer hols?

irs101

It depends on what she has currently reported. Does she claim the regular childminders costs? And is it just this figure that she is claiming at the moment i.e. she just claims the regular childminder costs even when she is paying the higher playscheme costs? If so, then yes, I would report the increase as it seems she is reporting on an "as is" basis i.e. reporting as the costs occur rather than estimating an average weekly cost for the year ahead. That's an extra £5.60 (£8 x 70%) a week for ten weeks.

If she has reported an annual average (i.e. 39 weeks of childminder plus 13 weeks of playscheme divided by 52) then no, her annual average weekly costs have not increased by £10pw.

The HMRC guidance is very shaky on this and I'm really not an expert, but then nobody else seems to be either - for example the Daycare Trust website seems quite poor.

The sooner they get people to record their cost each week and sort it all out at the end of the year the better.....bet it never happens! What a mess...