You may have to pay a tax charge, known as the ‘High Income Child Benefit Charge’, if you have an individual income over £50,000 and either:
- you or your partner get Child Benefit
- someone else gets Child Benefit for a child living with you and they contribute at least an equal amount towards the child’s upkeep
It does not matter if the child living with you is not your own child.
What counts as income
To work out if your income is over the threshold, you’ll need to work out your ‘adjusted net income’.
Your adjusted net income is your total taxable income before any personal allowances and less things like Gift Aid.
Use the Child Benefit tax calculator to get an estimate of your adjusted net income.
Who pays the charge
If your individual income is over £50,000 and so is your partner’s, then whoever has the higher income is responsible for paying the tax charge.
‘Partner’ means someone you’re not permanently separated from who you’re married to, in a civil partnership with or living with as if you were.
If the income exceeds the threshold
You can choose to either:
- get Child Benefit payments, and pay any tax charge at the end of each tax year
- not get Child Benefit payments, and not pay the tax charge
If you choose to not get Child Benefit
You can still fill in the Child Benefit claim form. You need to state on the form that you do not want to get payments.
You need to fill in the claim form if you want to:
- get National Insurance credits, which count towards your State Pension
- ensure your child gets their National Insurance number automatically before they’re 16 – otherwise they need to apply for one themselves
If Child benefit is already being claimed you can choose to stop receiving the benefit or to pay the tax charge at the end of each tax year.
The tax charge is paid via self assessment therefore you must register for self assessment by the 5th October following the tax year you need to pay the charge.
If you need help with self assessment and the higher rate tax charge contact AJR & Co Ltd.