High income child benefit charge...oh ****

[Participant]

Just got a letter from HMRC asking me if I should have been paying self-assessment income tax on child benefits my wife and I have been receiving for the past...while.

Has anyone else received one of these recently? I know there are those that will perhaps fairly say I should have known about it and I'm sure I'll get blasted for this thread, but I wasn't aware of the charge and assumed all of this type of thing would flow through PAYE anyway.

I'm now slightly concerned that I'll have £xk to pay to the tax man in child benefit receipts that I wasn't entitled to, plus potential penalties and interest.

I believe I can gift my wife's pension fund a certain amount to reduce my gross taxable pay and that this can be done for prior years too.

Does anyone have any experience of this scenario?

Thanks.

 

[Participant]

Thanks all. Sounds like I'm basically screwed unless I fancy paying £30k into my wife's pension fund .

Might be worth looking at ESC A19 https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-did-not-act

Thanks, I'll check that out but it sounds like that might only apply to PAYE mistakes, rather than self assessment.

Hmm I’ve not had the letter but last tax year my side gig pushed me over the 50k so I guess I should get in touch with them

Note that you can deduct pension contributions. The £50k is based on adjusted net income / total taxable income.

 

[Participant]

Emailed HMRC 4 weeks ago indicating that I want to communicate by email.

No reply, so emailed them again 2 weeks ago.

No reply, so just tried to phone them - I was on hold for 30 minutes then it started ringing...hurrah! Then the phone went dead. Booo.

Guess I'll try again on Thursday.

I estimate my total bill to be ~£5k excluding interest and charges.