Child Benefit salary eligibility

Bucaman

Hi there

We have just had our first child so are new to the child benefit application.

I am the highest earner and work in a Sales role where my basic salary is £55k and I have a commission pot of £30k which comes into play when I hit 100% of monthly and quarterly targets. So I’m currently not sure whether to submit £55k or £85k, as the first will mean some child benefit, and the latter will mean none.

Should I be submitting the £30k commission amount even though it’s technically not guaranteed I’ll be paid it?

Thanks

Jonathan 

doodling

Hi,

The easiest way to deal with this is for Child Benefit to be claimed and then for you to deal with this on your tax return at the end of the year.  You just need to bear in mind that it might be due and put aside the money to pay it (or have it taken off next year's PAYE).

If you put your commission plus £5k into your pension then you remain fully eligible for child benefit - that might be worth considering as presumably you live as if the commission might not happen so you wouldn't notice putting it into a pension. 

p00hsticks

Whichever way you go about it, if the other half is a non / low earner, make sure the benefit is in their name so they get the associated NI credits. Even if your salary is too high for it to be of any financial benefit, there is an option to just claim the NI credits and not the money. 

Elliott.T123

Jonathan as someone in a similar commission based role I suspect if you are earning less than £5k a year in commission you will be out of a job pretty fast!

Assuming this is the case I would put the child benefit in your partners name but not claim it so that you do not need to complete the tax return but that she still receives the NI benefits.