Grandparent NI credit if parent not working

HannahC23

Could my sister transfer her unclaimed NI credit to our mum even though she is not a working parent?

I'm asking this with my sister and her family in mind. My sister is a stay at home mum. BIL earns over the child benefit threshold so they don't claim. My sister chooses not to claim the NI credits because they have a good pension plan in place. However, our mum watches my niece 1 day a week so that my sister can run errands, and because mum wants to.
Could my sister transfer her unclaimed NI credit to our mum even though she is not a working parent?

molerat

No.  The CB credits can only be transferred if the donor is receiving credits from other sources.

Why is she not making a non payment claim ?  Turning down free money seems a little silly to me, you never know what is going to happen in the future and squirrelling away whatever you can now seems prudent..

p00hsticks

I don't believe so, no. 
The person making the transfer has to have a full years NI creditted in addition to the ones associated with the Child Benefit.
Specified Adult Childcare credits: fact sheet - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

It should be possible for your BIL to claim Child Benefit (it is possible to say you only want the credits, not the money, if you know you would just have to pay it back)  and for him to then transfer them though. 

I'd strongly suggest that your sister looks at her own State Pension forecast though and considers claiming herself though, particularly as you say 'they' and not 'she' has a good pension plan in place. Would that still be the case if she was left widowed or divorced ?    

xylophone

Or has BIL considered increasing his pension contributions so as to bring his income below the HICBC threshold?

https://www.mandg.com/pru/adviser/en-gb/insights-events/insights-library/reduce-high-income-child-benefit-charge

 The CB credit only should be claimed to protect the non working wife's state pension if the husband cannot/does not wish to use the pension contribution option.

https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-tax-calculator

HannahC23

Thank you for your responses! I thought that would be the case but it was worth checking. I have told my sister it would be sensible to claim the NI credit even though she doesn't think she needs it but there's only so much I can push.