Childcare Vouchers through salary sacrifice - unable to spend

Eassenav

Hi, 
There is another post relating to this, but I thought I should highlight in this section as well.

We are in the position that our youngest child will be 15 in April 2021 and my understanding is that childcare vouchers we have through a workplace scheme (salary sacrificed so there are tax implications) need to be spent by 31st August 2021.  We thought we had planned things perfectly to use the vouchers on PGL holidays for both our boys each summer to help with childcare whilst both me and my husband worked (we have no local family and this helped to keep the boys active until we had our family holiday).  Of course Covid had other ideas and their holidays were cancelled this year and at the moment there are no plans for rescheduled trips.  Our eldest is now too old so his holiday will be refunded back to our childcare voucher account (Care-4) and the younger one will have his transferred to next summer (fingers crossed that can go ahead).
However, we had also saved enough vouchers to pay for next year's trip which we now no longer need and we also have the possibility that the remaining trip we have booked will be cancelled.

Care-4 are saying that we either use the vouchers by 31.8.21 or lose them, but as these are exceptional circumstances you would think that a refund would be possible.  I understand that we would need to pay the appropriate tax which we could do via self assessment.

I have written to my MP who is going to ask the Department of Education what provision is being made but I am yet to hear back.

I know that we are not the only family in this situation (we will potentially have around £1200 in unused vouchers).

Has anyone else had any joy in getting information as to whether the rules will be changed to allow parents to get their money (less the tax owed) back?

Who else can we contact about this?

Many thanks for taking the time to read this.

LizzieM16

I'm in a similar position with Edenred. They advised me that it was up to my employer as to whether they would refund. My employer advised that they would not. It would be interesting if some provision could be made by Parliament. 

Growingmyown

I have £440 sitting in a childcare voucher scheme and I cannot use it. My son is now 10 and nowhere is doing clubs where I could use them (you know, because of Covid). The T&Cs are: 'Vouchers do not expire but they are non-refundable unless in exceptional limited circumstances as guided by HMRC.' This is no good to me. I have tried to get the money back but can't. I think that MSE should start a campaign about this and lobby the gov/HMRC to change the rules. The climate is very different to when I began saving them. Now I can't see how I'd spend them. If the gov broadened the rules to allow spending on clubs like tennis, swimming, etc, that would help.

Screaming_Flamingo

At a minimum, there should be a "donate to charity" option for these vouchers. We haven't paid tax on them so it's the equivalent of just applying gift aid to a donation. I have £15 left in vouchers. Can't use them, so I guess that is just profit for the voucher company. I'd much prefer them to go to a charity instead.