Money Moral Dilemma: Should my partner contribute to us repaying Child Benefit?

Annemad

Thank god my husband and I earned more or less the same. I paid child care, shopping and he paid mortgage and bills. After this we had little left. He will reap the benefits when his pension matures.

IvonH

I can't believe you are asking this.  You don't say that this is about your child/ren but since you are repaying some child benefit, I assume that you are talking about your offspring.  If you were my partner, I'd be out of the door.

ShinyStarlight1

It depends on whether you recognise child rearing as work. Much of women’s work is unrecognised.

[Deleted User]

I gave up work to raise our children, as we both thought it was best for them.  Being non-salaried when my fellow mums are in paid work is lonely, but we don't suffer financially as I don't have the many expenses of going out to work, and time at home means endless money-saving practices,including home-cooking and baking, and I do all the household chores without outside help.  Home is a good place to be, it's well-run, I am always there for everyone with good meals prepared and served on time.  I would say that it is better for everyone except me, without company or career!  All monies go into a joint account, for all of us, and we assume any pension will be our joint income.  Staying at home to care for the family is a sacrifice, but the idea of not pooling our resources, and agreeing and doing what is best for the children we caused to exist, is not for us.  Any suggestion of 'yours' and 'mine' is detrimental to a happy home and family.

Spendless

I'm so glad my husband didn't take this attitude. It was me either staying at home or only taking jobs with set or restricted hours that enabled him to climb a corporate ladder by putting in additional hours working away etc meaning he earnt enough for us to be affecting by the CB Higher rate charge from the very beginning of the policy coming in until last year when we no longer needed to do one as youngest had grown up. I didn't contribute to any 'joint bills' out of my wages either not even groceries. Instead my wages bought the 'extras' clothing, school uniforms, activities during  school holidays, children's clubs. spending money for family holidays, more recently it's funded daughter's student rent. 

My husband acknowledged that his salary would be a lot lower without me providing childcare for our children and didn't expect me to contribute to any CB repayment that occurred as a result. 

darkly

frugalwin said:

Once you have kids, a fairly wide income difference can present itself that is nothing to do with the amount of effort either partner is putting in. In fact, the partner earning less is probably putting in more effort if they are staying home looking after children. There’s a fairly simple solution to this, but I have a feeling you won’t do it as you’re likely to “lose out” more, and the way you’ve worded the question makes you come across as avaricious:

Pool all of your income (including child benefit), pay all of the joint bills (including the tax charge and a joint credit card for joint expenses), then split what’s left equally for each of you to spend or save as you please. This is what’s most “fair” and fully recognises the non-monetary contributions your partner is making to the family by giving you both equal opportunities to spend.

This is by far the best answer. 

LisaGee

According to google, font of all knowledge, child benefit is £24 a week. This works out to £1248 a year. If that's correct, it seems like a small amount compared to your overall family income. As others have posted, it's up to you and your partner to agree your financial plans. 

tastyfish

We’re in a similar position (except I’d have to sacrifice about 45-50% of my salary to pension) but we get round this by not treating individual income as individual income but instead considering it as overall household income. Which I suspect is how most couples in a long-term relationship deal with it. Ultimately she, and our children, will benefit from my pension (and my higher salary).

——
HICBC is a ridiculously unfair tax and cannot understand how that even passed legislation when so many other benefits consider household income. I hope they change it and allow retrospective claims (however, I suspect they’ll just stop any household earning over £60,000 or whatever from claiming it at all, rather than upping the limit to the theoretical current £100,000 joint one)

tastyfish

MrsC2018 said:

Hmmm you do realise it's done on Gross what you earn not on Net.. so if you earn over 50k then you will have to pay back the child benefit charge regardless how much you put into pension? 

I know this as I do a self assessment for my husband every year as he earns over 60k and we have to give the whole lot back. Just to let you know. 

No, it’s based on your ‘adjusted net income’ so contributions to pensions reduce this. If you’re doing self assessment any pension contributions should obviously be declared which can then reduce the HICBC. What HMRC tend to do is adjust your tax code during the year to what they forecast you’ll be earning and recover the HICBC through PAYE. You can choose not to have this in which case you’ll have to pay the charge (if any) through the normal options after you submit your self assessment. If you earn just over £60,000 you’d be mad not to reduce it through pensions. Don’t forget that any CB is effectively ‘income after tax’ so for every £1 of CB you’d have to earn the equivalent of £1.67 as 40% is taxed. And also, you’ll have an extra boost to your pension 🙂.

EDIT:
Example of how your tax code changes if you repay HIBC through PAYE. If you have to re-pay £1000 in HICBC your personal allowance will be reduced by £5000 so the numbers in your tax code will now be 500 lower. This means that £5000 is now subject to 20% tax, which is £1000. If you complete a self assessment it may give you the impression that you don't have to re-pay it - that may be because you've already repaid the charge (through PAYE)!

philip57

If you are planning to stay together, it really doesn’t matter - just choose the most tax-efficient option. If you aren’t confident that you’ll be together long term, I suggest you focus on that and have an adult conversation with your partner - not least for the children’s benefit.