Anna’s Accountancy Alerts – January 2020

High Income Child Benefit Charge Deadline 31 January

You may need to pay a tax charge if you or your partner receive Child Benefit and you earn over £50,000.

You need to:

• Check your annual income on your P60 or your personal tax account.
• Include any taxable benefits, for example medical insurance, company car or accommodation in their income.
• Use the Child Benefit tax calculator.
• To avoid a penalty, notify HMRC and register for Self-Assessment and submit a 2018 to 2019 return before 31 January 2020 and pay what is due.

You can opt out of claiming Child Benefit payments, so you won’t have to pay the charge for future tax years but will still receive the National Insurance credits.

Tax-Free Childcare Payments

HMRC have made it quicker for parents to pay for the childcare they use.

As an example, if a parent makes a deposit into their Tax-Free Childcare account by bank transfer or standing order:

• it should take only 2 hours for the payment to reach their childcare account.
• we’ll add any government ‘top up’
• they can use the money to pay their childcare provider as soon as it shows as ‘available funds’.

If they pay their childcare provider:

• before 2.30pm, it’ll reach their provider’s account the same day.
• after 2.30pm, or at the weekend or on a bank holiday, it’ll arrive in their account the next working day.

Record Number Of Tax Scams

The number of scams involving bogus HMRC communications is increasing as the self-assessment payment deadline approaches. 

Unless you know that you owe money to HMRC, it’s very unlikely that it will be calling you about a debt. Hang up immediately and do not return the call using any number given. For suspicious documents compare them to the examples of scams on HMRC’s website.

Want More Information?

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