Profession braces for child benefit chaos

Is there anything about controlling shareholders living on capital while taking a small salary/dividends from the company? I seem to recall there is somehing along those lines for tax credits, but haven't seen anything for CB? If there is can someone point me at it?

thanks

... that there are that many on over £50K per year who do not already have to complete SA returns.  Sure, they are all on PAYE, but even so.

With kind regards

Clint Westwood

have a look here for the criteria for filling out returns, which have been updated to reflect child benefit changes:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/need-tax-return.htm

If you are already in SA I cannot see any difference between opting out and not paying and not opting out and paying.

HMRC have over the years since SA came in made some efforts to whittle down those who need to do returns. I cannot help wondering what the relative administrative costs of this measure are vs the money saved.

How well do you know your clients and family members? I'm not sure I know enough about their personal lives so need to think about getting information about Child Benefit. Do I ask them all or try to be selective based on known ages etc?

... to describe in quotes the "normal" (and arbitrary) limit of £100K (and other qualifying conditions set out in the HMRC website and SA1 guidance notices).  This has no statutory basis and neither do most of the other qualifying conditions listed alongside.

It is a source of some frustration among regular posters in the Any Answers section of this forum that, without searching for earlier threads on the subject, the ill informed continue to propogate this myth by quoting HMRC's website rather than the legislation, which is embedded in s.7 TMA 1970, which makes no reference to a £100K limit, nor, for that matter (a more common cause of misunderstanding) company directors.

With kind regards

Clint Westwood

"Say your salary's approaching £60,000 and you've got two children, then your marginal tax rate's going to be somewhere around 70% which is fairly high"

I thought it was roughly an extra 10% on people between £50k and £60k, which equates to a 50% marginal rate. Can anyone enlighten me?

It has earlier been noted that NIC credits (previously Home Responsibility Protection) is based on those claiming Child Benefit (ie you get an entitlement to your state pension due to the fact that you are not working as you are looking after children under the age of 12). It works on an auto enrollment system. By opting out of Child Benefit, you would loose your credits, which is not good for a non working wife/husband of a >£50k earner. It would be preferable to claim the CHB and repay it with SA.

Has there been a satisfactory way of solving the problem? And why has it not been addressed in the press?

Two children means higher child benefit.  I read that it's (from memory) an effective 11% increase for the first child and 7% for subsequent children.  That would make it 58% in the example.

I was at a training course recently and the presenter said that as long as CHB has been claimed at some point then HRP continues to accrue. Unfortunately, while he was pretty definite on the point, he didn't reference his view to any legislation.

Home Responsibilities protection was replaced on 6th April 2010 by "National Insurance Credits for Parents and Carers", but is still essentially the same thing. The eligibility comes from making the claim, not the receiving of the payment, so if you have made the claim in the past the eligibility to NICPC even if you opt out of payments. 

It is also important for any new child, you make a claim, even if you know you will not be entitled to payment. The following is from HMRC website about this subject...

"Fill in a Child Benefit claim form

You or your partner should fill in a Child Benefit claim form for your new child. This is because entitlement to receive Child Benefit:

• can help you qualify for National Insurance credits that can protect your entitlement to State Pension
• can help protect your entitlement to other benefits such as Guardian's Allowance
• ensures your child is automatically issued with a National Insurance number before their 16th birthday

So you should still fill in a Child Benefit claim form even if you:

• could be liable to the tax charge on some or all of the Child Benefit you or your partner are entitled to receive
• agree to stop getting the actual payments instead of declaring them

The claim form will ask you if you want to receive your Child Benefit payments.

The Child Benefit Office will tell the person who filled in the claim form if they are entitled to receive Child Benefit." 

If you have two children, the child benefit received is £1,752 per year.  A tax charge of 1% of this is incurred for every £100 your income exceeds £50,000: an addtional tax of 17.52%.  So, with higher rate tax at 40% and NI at 2%, your marginal tax rate is 59.52% - higher than the 52% the Government thought was too much for the very highest earners to pay.

If you have eight children and claim child benefit, your marginal tax rate on income between £50k and £60k will be over 100%. 

be considering the snip?.... 

If I am self employed and earn £60,000, I pay about £17,500 tax NI and lose all child benefit.

If I take my non-earning spouse as a partner and we split the £60,000 between us, we save £5,000 in tax and keep all of our child benefit.

Is this immoral avoidance or sensible tax planning?

only if the spouse is not actually doing anything for the partnership...

Sadly too late for those of us who have realised the full financial burden of those once so beautiful babies. But maybe useful to the poster quoting a family with 8 children. Can't think of any I know off-hand but doubtless they exist somewhere.

Wouldn't that make her a sleeping partner and exempt from Class 2 and 4 NI? 

This article's headline seems a little defeatist. Why not "Profession braces for lots of new SA clients"?

Every cloud and all that!

Complexity is good for business from my point of view.  

Thank you HMRC I say!

A friend I had when I was little had 9 brothers, the theory being a football team was being formed by his mother.  The looks on their faces when baby 11 was a girl were akin to those of Henry the 8th and the average Chinese parent.

You guys just love this. Hey look there's a new acronym to play with and scare people, lets all say hi to a HICBC. Rebecca (doesn't she know the Queen?) says it's a train wreck, I say it's another fee opportunity. At least Anita's honest I suppose.  Caught a little of "You and Yours" (I think) on R4 yesterday when they had the queens and toffs accountants on to advise. Thats ACA (not "ay-cee-ay" anymore apparently, or at least as I thought, but now "akah" and the ICAEW). Dear oh dear, how they can keep a straight face amazes me. This is all excellent news for them really as it directs a new cohort of clients their way - high earning PAYE'ers. What a wheeze. A good few more pages for a much needed new edition of Tolley's too I expect.  Henry George - Progress and Poverty. landvaluetax.org. Steve Keen, Debunking Economics. Mason Gaffney - Corruption of Economics.