Child Benefit

The income threshold for entitlement to Child Benefit has increased to £60,000. As parents you could be missing out on cash.

However there is a high income child benefit charge payable by people if they or  their partner have individual income that is over the threshold. An individual income is over the threshold if it’s over £60,000 for the tax year 2024/25 or over £50,000 for years up to and including the previous year 2023/24.

If you think your income is over the threshold, you can choose either to opt out of getting child benefits payments and not pay the tax charge, or you must pay any tax charge at the end of a tax year. 

And this is where problems arise. If you fail to declare the high income child benefit charge on your self-assessment tax return the only way the HMRC can recover this is to open an enquiry into that tax return. In doing so you are opening up potentially a can of worms into your earnings as they are likely to take a second look at everything declared on your tax return –so be careful. Look at the government website at Gov.uk under ‘high income child benefit charge’ to see whether you might be caught by it.

If you receive an enquiry letter on this subject call us, don’t let HMRC get a foot in the door and we will help you resolve it as you may be able to get time to pay it back to HMRC.

Contact Andy on 07879 464577 or Lindsay on 07584706664