Families to get up to £2,000 a year to help with childcare costs
Government confirms details of childcare support package.
The Government has confirmed details of its childcare support package, which will see nearly two million families offered help worth up to £2,000 a year per child.
When the Government first announced its intention to help with childcare costs last year, it was suggested that the support would total no more than £1,200 per child and would be phased in over a seven-year period.
However, this will be revamped, with Tax-Free Childcare offering a higher maximum level of support. And it will be available to all children under 12 within the first year from autumn 2015.
The Government will stump up 20% support on childcare costs up to a maximum of £10,000 per year, per child. In other words for every 80p parents pay in, the Government will pay 20p.
It will be administered via a “simple online system” run by HM Revenue & Customs, alongside National Savings & Investments.
The childcare support will be open to all families where the parents earn at least £50 per week, unless one parent earns more than £150,000 or receives support in the form of tax credits, Universal Credit or the existing Employer Supported Childcare vouchers. However the Government promises the rules will be tailored so that entrepreneurs and the self-employed who do not at first meet the earnings requirement are eligible for the scheme from the outset.
The current voucher scheme – where you sacrifice part of your salary for vouchers which can be used to pay for childcare – will still run, though it will be closed to new entrants from autumn 2015. Unlike the voucher scheme, the new Tax-Free Childcare accounts don’t rely on your employer signing up to participate.
What do you think? Will the new scheme make a significant difference to your childcare costs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments box below.
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If you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em. I'm sick of paying tax for other peoples kids, and all this government backing just encourages the scroungers to breed more. We're practising reverse Darwinism, and it's starting to show. The first signs of our political annihilation to third world status is the state of the roads. My tracking must be miles out by now, thanks to all the lumps and bumps.
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I'm always puzzled as to why we look to the government to undertake responsibilities that are morally ours. It is OUR responsibility to care for OUR children. Should both parents decide that it is in the interests of their family that they should both work out from the home then it it their responsibility to ensure that their children are adequately cared for. As a taxpayer I raised my children without any help from the government and they grew up to be fine responsible adults. I didn't farm them off to someone else but if I did then they would still have been My responsibility and I pay from my earnings. It is frustrating in a time when there is so much flap about perceived inequality that the government is encouraging inequality through giving away what is really money for nothing.
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If life was only so straight forward as to plan it so as never to need any support from the society we live in. I do agree there are many people who seem to have children as a form of income but equally you can't plan for the unexpected. My husband and I worked hard eared more than 80k a year between us for ten years, we saved for the time we'd have children. We have lovely twins who are 4 years old. Unfortunately my husband was diagnosed with MS the week I discovered my pregnancy and the type of work he can do is not as good as it once was. I work part time in a less well paid job to enable me time with the children. I am so glad I live in a society with the social support it has, I never thought I'd be so very much in need of it. Thankfully we live in Britain with its strong sense of society, thank you for thinking about the family in the budget.
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22 March 2014