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Tax free childcare delayed until 2017

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2nd Jul 2015
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The Supreme Court has deemed the Government’s tax free child care scheme lawful yesterday, but the scheme’s implementation will now be delayed until early 2017.

The scheme was due to begin this Autumn, but it was challenged by the Childcare Voucher Providers Association and Edenred who argued that awarding the contract to run the scheme broke EU procurement law as a new tender process was not carried out.

National Savings and Investments (NS& I), now confirmed as sole operator, has an existing outsourcing contract with private firm Atos. Effectively meaning Atos will carry out the scheme.

As noted by Samantha Mann on AccountingWEB recently, “The resolution of legal appeal should hopefully see improvements and additions being made to current guidance as well as an extension to the early calculators that initially will help an employee establish whether they are eligible for TFC”.

Speaking after the decision yesterday, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Damian Hinds indicated that the government will now crack on with their plans. He also took care to note his frustration at the delay, stating, “It is disappointing that some organisations involved in the existing scheme felt the need to take and persist in this costly and wasteful course of action, which has led to a delay in the launch of Tax-Free Childcare.”

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By Sheepy306
03rd Jul 2015 11:07

To be fair, if the government introduced a new system that basically destroyed my business and handed it over to another company with sole monopoly then I'd probably have a decent go at salvaging something by doing whatever I could.
Hopefully Mr Hinds does at least recognise this, even if his political PR response can only be to ignore the existing providers.
Personally I don't like all this faffing around with a scheme that initially seemed to suit the majority of people.

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By the_Poacher
06th Jul 2015 18:36

State sanctioned avoidance sxhemes
Are there any state sanctioned tax and NIC avoidance schemes available to those who choose not to breed?

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By ey143
06th Jul 2015 12:57

yup
Yeah there is, it's called not working.

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Replying to Mr_awol:
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By the_Poacher
06th Jul 2015 18:37

:)
Not the answer I was hoping for

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