Childcare vouchers

[Chugnut]

Does anyone have any more detail on what records you need to keep.

I was told by my accountant that it is fine to pay up to £243, as long as the nursery/child minder are registered in the scheme?

You can pay more than the £243 but will have to pay tax / NI on the excess so no benefit really.

Your childcarer must be OFSTED registered - you must obtain their number for your own records if you're running the scheme. They must also be willing to receive payment in vouchers (they will just sign these and you'll pay them from the company account) but it's unlikely that they will be reluctant.

For all their faults, HMRC's website is excellent. All you need is here.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childcare/

[spoons]

Does anyone have any more detail on what records you need to keep.

I was told by my accountant that it is fine to pay up to £243, as long as the nursery/child minder are registered in the scheme?

[Chugnut]

It's worth doing. Each parent can receive £243 monthly (or £55 per week). My wife's employer does this via a salary sacrifice - £243 of her monthly pay is in the form of vouchers direct to the childcarer. Our childcare is more than this, so my limited company issues a voucher for the difference in addition to my monthly salary.

The company has certain records to keep but it doesn't amount to much more than keeping a spreadsheet of each kid/parent, designing a voucher, and a memo detailing the scheme.

As Alan says, it's free of income tax and employer and employee NI. It also doesn't have to appear on the P11d as a benefit in kind either provided it's under the £243 limit.

[Mustang]

It can be beneficial, the saving is that upto £243 per month can be paid towards your child care needs.

Basically these costs can be paid free of PAYE & NIC and are an allowable dedcution against Corporation Tax.

Just ensure that it is set up the right way!

Alan

Thanks for the input Alan - I will leave setting it up to my accountant (who also does my payroll).

/Alan.

[slackbloke]

Interesting, the crucial bit about corporation tax as I couldn't find that mentioned anywhere. But the bit about NI and tax, presumably if you paid that same amount of money as a dividend and it was below the higher rate limit there would be no NI or tax anyway? But now I know about the CT is seems like quite a good idea...............

[Nixon Williams]

It can be beneficial, the saving is that upto £243 per month can be paid towards your child care needs.

Basically these costs can be paid free of PAYE & NIC and are an allowable dedcution against Corporation Tax.

Just ensure that it is set up the right way!

Alan

[slackbloke]

I had a look at this and decided it wasn't worth the hassle. From what I could see you don't actually save much because all the money is coming from your company anyway. If you worked for someone elses company that would be different. There may be some saving but it looked small to me.
If someone says different I will try it :-)

[Mustang]

Has anyone provided themselves with childcare vouchers through their Ltd? If so, how beneficial was it?