Guide discussion: Tax-Free Childcare

Dolly123

I've now not been paid my bonus for the past 2 months its absolutely crap, when they call it 'compensation' is that just the bonus paid again late or is it you get paid double bonus? Has anyone actually received their compensation yet?

sheramber

try writing to Nicky Morgan, chair of the Treasury committee.

She previously made enquiries about problems with tax free child care services.

You could contact Watchdog to see if they are interested in highlighting the problems.

Keep bombarding your MP. Visit him/her at her constituency surgeries. Face to face is not so easy to ignore

If enough people complain questions will be raised in parliament.

IvysMom

I finally received an "interim response" to my 2 complaints to HMRC regarding not being able to access my account. In essence it said - Yes we know that some people are affected by this, we are sorry that you are one of them. We don't know how to fix it but will contact you again when it is fixed.


6 months trying to get this sorted and they don't know how to fix it??????????????


I also received another letter asking me to send to copies of paperwork to confirm my identity that have to be signed by a professional person so that they can open my account which I recently sent a payment to. I sent the payment in October! Has anyone else had to send this info?

Tricky97

I feel quite lucky that i have been able to register and pay for my childcare!

Anyway i do have some questions that the HMRC are unable to answer (tried three different people via the helpline):

1. What is the basis of the entitlement period? (one answer was that this starts from when you register, another said it was was the first payment made!?)
2. HOw is the entitlement amount calculated? I know i should get £2k per child, and therefore i assumed it would be £500 per each 3 month entitlement period, However, i can claim £482 for one child and £626 for the other? how the hell does that work.

Thanks

kora_2

Hi,

Once an account has been opened, if I know my childcare costs for the year starting in July is going to be £10,600 - ish. Can I add £8000 directly to the pot? (this would me we wont spend it and its already been allocated).

Many thanks.

IvysMom

For anyone that is interested I finally got a response to my Freedom of Information request. Now they said that they couldn't answer most of my questions, surprise! But what I did get is that as of 22 December 2017 they had received 3,496 complaints from parents who have experienced difficulties accessing the website and have paid out £966,666 of compensation for missed payments and £38,949 for inconvenience and expenses such as telephone calls to the helpline. That's over £1m of compensation of tax payers money in only 8 months since tax free childcare began. Why is no one reporting this?


The other piece of info I did get was the contact details of Angela McDonald the Director General of Customer Services who will be my next port of call. Anyone who want to write to her the address is 100 Parliament Street London SW1A 2BQ.


Good luck

romanovski

Tricky97 wrote: »

I feel quite lucky that i have been able to register and pay for my childcare!

Anyway i do have some questions that the HMRC are unable to answer (tried three different people via the helpline):

1. What is the basis of the entitlement period? (one answer was that this starts from when you register, another said it was was the first payment made!?)
2. HOw is the entitlement amount calculated? I know i should get £2k per child, and therefore i assumed it would be £500 per each 3 month entitlement period, However, i can claim £482 for one child and £626 for the other? how the hell does that work.

Thanks

I also count myself lucky that this is even working for me.... but i have exactly the same questions as you.

The website seems to make a critical mistake in calculating how much you (and the government) have paid in based on your available balance, NOT based on how much you have actually paid in.

Consider this example

I pay in £800, government tops up with £200, available balance =£1000, remaining government funds for this entitlement period =£300.

So far so good

If i then make a payment of £500 to my provider, my new available balance is £500. However, the website then shows that the government has only paid in £100 and i have paid in only £400. It just splits the available balance into 80/20 rather than actually looking at the payment history.

It's absolutely astonishing this is not been fixed as this makes it impossible to track how to maximise the government contibution.

Coupled with the fact that there is no information about when entitlement periods start and end... utterly useless.

romanovski

kora wrote: »

Hi,

Once an account has been opened, if I know my childcare costs for the year starting in July is going to be £10,600 - ish. Can I add £8000 directly to the pot? (this would me we wont spend it and its already been allocated).

Many thanks.

I think this is a bad idea as the £2000 annual allowance is split over 4 "entitlement periods".. if you pay in £8000 lump sum, you will just max out your entitlement period and be credited with £500... not the £2000 you are expecting.

It would be better to pay in £2000 each entitlement period... but it is very unclear when these periods run to/from.

kora_2

romanovski wrote: »

I think this is a bad idea as the £2000 annual allowance is split over 4 "entitlement periods".. if you pay in £8000 lump sum, you will just max out your entitlement period and be credited with £500... not the £2000 you are expecting.

It would be better to pay in £2000 each entitlement period... but it is very unclear when these periods run to/from.

Thank you, from reading your previous post and issues with the system, this makes much more sense.

Ive not applied for an account yet as my LO is not due to start nursery until Aug. When would be the best time to apply and start putting in funds, july?

CoolIvory

Tricky97 wrote: »

I feel quite lucky that i have been able to register and pay for my childcare!

Anyway i do have some questions that the HMRC are unable to answer (tried three different people via the helpline):

1. What is the basis of the entitlement period? (one answer was that this starts from when you register, another said it was was the first payment made!?)
2. HOw is the entitlement amount calculated? I know i should get £2k per child, and therefore i assumed it would be £500 per each 3 month entitlement period, However, i can claim £482 for one child and £626 for the other? how the hell does that work.

Thanks

Hi
So i spoke to an advisor a while ago and she explained the eligibilty periods is from when you first got approved to the end of your reconfirmation
And as long as you reconfirm on time it will be normally be 3 months eligibilty to the next end date of reconfirmation , you can find the end date in the securemessages or on the reconfirm button

But if it shorter or longer than 3 months you will get more/less than £500 ,but still max £2K over the year