Divorcing, what happens to tax free childcare account for 50/50 care?

bigstevex

As per the title, my wife and myself are divorcing, 50/50 shared care, children won't move school/nursery or even need to change days etc and so the childcare fees will stay same etc. Friendly split in case it matters.

We were never allowed to claim child benefit because of my earnings being just over the limit but my soon to be ex will be able to claim them as she earns less so this would transfer to her.  Soon to be ex has also a small entitlement to universal credit we think.

Would we ask the nursery/school to bill 50% to each of us?  I can use tax free childcare for my half and ex would use either tax free childcare or universal credit?  Our youngest gets the 30 hours free too.

It's confusing us both how we split it or do I just keep the tax free childcare account and ex would send me half the costs each month?

sheramber

https://www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare?step-by-step-nav=d78aeaf6-1747-4d72-9619-f16efb4dd89d

If you are separated

You and your ex-partner need to decide who should apply if you are jointly responsible for your child.

If you cannot decide, both of you must apply separately and HMRC will decide who gets a childcare account

bigstevex

Ah ok, so if it stays in my name, that means she can still claim the extra universal credit too then too as you can’t claim both.  Feels like we’d be cheating the system doing that but doesn’t seem anything against it as we are 2 separate households

poppy12345

bigstevex said:

Ah ok, so if it stays in my name, that means she can still claim the extra universal credit too then too as you can’t claim both. 

I don't think that's correct. You can't both claim the childcare. With shared care you need to decide who claims for the childcare.

bigstevex

poppy12345 said:

bigstevex said:

Ah ok, so if it stays in my name, that means she can still claim the extra universal credit too then too as you can’t claim both. 

I don't think that's correct. You can't both claim the childcare. With shared care you need to decide who claims for the childcare.

This is my concern, if HMRC let us decide then it’s best kept with me because my ex can still claim child benefit and universal credit but she wouldn’t be entitled to tax free childcare in which case it’s not true that HMRC let you decide as it already sounds decided for us

Just trying to save 1 less thing we need to switch round if we can but it’s confusing 🤣