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tell me what you know as just got the letter from HMRC and trying to find all the info I need to calculate it?
Got caught with this, paye so oblivious to these things ended up with 3 years worth back dated, £3200 ouch!
We were totally unaware too - we were told that apparently there had been a national ad campaign, so no need to write to anyone to warn them about it.
We paid it back, they wanted a fine on top, but eventually they waived that. I've got no qualms about CB being means tested to some extent but it is a shambolic system.
It's calculated as part of self assessment which is reasonably straightforward to submit online if that's the only thing you have outside of PAYE.
Takes about 7 days for an account for SA to be set up, they have to send you a code.
If you are at 60k or close you may as well just cancel the benefit.
It’s nothing short of a scam. We too have had to repay close to £3000 of supposed overpayments, despite us providing them with all the information they required each year on a timely basis. They backdated some of our ‘overpayments’ to 2009! When we tried to appeal we were eventually informed we were too late as their appeal deadline had passed.
No one to talk to there, correspondence by letter, complete refusal to enter into any discussions, they are a bunch of ****s.
Pretty much everyone I know with kids who has used this tax credit system to assist them has been victim to this government fraud and yet there’s next to no publicity. Quite what relevance means testing has to do with their reclaims? We are certainly nowhere near the £60k mark, nor are many of the other people who have had similar experiences to us.
We no longer subscribe to their child tax credit/working tax credit system.
The thing is, it was they who calculated the amounts we were due and paid! Effectively they’re now trying to recoup the mistakes they made because not even they understood the frikkin system! Although personally it feels more like a stealth tax!
The one hand giveth and the other taketh away! Bitter? Moi? Damn ****ing right I am. ****s.
Got caught out with this too, now have the joy of filling in self assessments every year which is just duplicating my P60 as we no longer receive child benefit and have repaid our over payments.
You should not stop receiving it. Been advised by a very good accountant to keep taking the payments then put them aside to pay back. It also contributes contributes some way to your NI figures and as mrsws is zero hours that's why we also do it. Peoples circumstances change and it's apparently a right ball ache to set up again.
My biggest hugest gripe is as I always quote.
a married couple on 49999 (100k household) each will recieve the full amount, one person on 60k and wife staying at home bringing up kids (60k househkld) gets nothing
Oh and I also spoke to someone high up in taxman land and she said it (2 years ago) was their biggest current purge and had employed extra people to claw it all back as they knew there were tens of thousands who just weren't aware..
Good point Wrightyson, not really considered that.
Votchy, you'll probably get let off soon. I did as soon as I declared on my last return that child benefit had finished, but then I had been aware and squaring up every year. Sure they won't make you do it forever because PAYE is much easier for them to administer.
Got caught last year after we claimed this when out first was a baby - 10 years ago. We don’t qualify now but HMRC continued to pay it. Luckily, it was being paid into a bank account my wife still had open but didn’t use - we had over £5k of payments in it luckily not spent. We just paid it back and argue against the fine which we didn’t pay.
a shambolic system
The acronym for that is HMRC.
Started paying it about 2 years ago. Luckily that was the first time we needed to actually pay. Although I have no confidence in how they come up with the calculations and the tax code.
I just enter the details from my P60 as there are no other incomes which makes it pretty easy to do the self assessment online. Prob takes about 30 minutes in total.
a married couple on 49999 (100k household) each will recieve the full amount, one person on 60k and wife staying at home bringing up kids (60k househkld) gets nothing
First person goes part time, second person gets a part time job - you get two lots of tax-free allowance, keep the child benefits, share the parenting and both keep career progression going? Win, win, win, win?
Some of you are confuddling the original Child Benefit question, where the means-testing came in a few years ago, with stories of Child Tax Credit overpayments 🙂
As you were.
I find HMRC to generally be OK, certainly far better than they were, IF you are armed with a modicum of knowledge about ie if you know you need to repay your child benefit it’s quite straightforward to do on self assessment, but if you don’t I agree it can be v frustrating. Recently changed contracts (but not jobs) and the new employing company decided to put me on a D1 tax code (everything at 50%). HMRC sorted it within 10 mins on phone (albeit after a 20 min queue time)...
I screwed up my SA return last year and got caught out with it. I had a fine suspended for good behaviour and had to pay it back. My fault but smarted a little.
Don't forget it's >£50k taxable pay before it's reducing, so take your pension contributions off your gross pay. If you're still >£50k think about extra pension contributions as getting the child benefit effectively makes the pension contribution cheaper.
I'm over £50k gross but under after pension so happy that wife is getting full child benefit. However I hadn't realised until reading this that they didn't wrap it into your PAYE tax code, that's really stupid... Great, I'll have to do self assessment in a year or... Ten. Fabulous.
Don’t forget it’s >£50k taxable pay before it’s reducing, so take your pension contributions off your gross pay. If you’re still >£50k think about extra pension contributions as getting the child benefit effectively makes the pension contribution cheaper.
Also remember that it's calculated after any salary sacrafice, so you can deduct childcard vouchers (at least the ones I get which are the original vouchers @243/month) and cycle to work payments.
Oh yes. Which makes the means tested chilled benefit even more odd, as those salary sacrifice schemes save higher earners far more than lower earners! Maybe I should take another look at the bike to work scheme.... Although the rules in our scheme about residual value seemed to make any saving pretty small.
Which makes the means tested chilled benefit even more odd, as those salary sacrifice schemes save higher earners far more than lower earners!
The high earners never seem to complain about this...
That's a good justification for the Mrs though - I need a new bike to reduce my salary so we keep getting child benefit 🙂
See I find this bloody confusing. I think I might have been overpaying it but I am not sure and have been paying the higher amount to be safe and not get fined
I read you were supposed to use the number on your P60 indicated with the * (pay and income tax details / in this employment).
As far as I can tell this number seems to be my salary minus child care vouchers and C2W. But it does not seem to be minus my work pension (which is a good chunk of money).
So should I be manually taking the pension contributions from the starred number and using that?
If that's the case taxman owes me the money I've paid back...
And it really should be advertised somewhere - I found out from a mate down the pub, I'd always been PAYE so had no idea I might need to start doing SA;s
I think HMRC recommend anyone over 50k should do SA. I've never understood why when you are basic PAYE.
So should I be manually taking the pension contributions from the starred number and using that?
No, because the tax relief from that gets paid directly into the pension so you've already had that benefit. Use the value as stated.
I think HMRC recommend anyone over 50k should do SA. I’ve never understood why when you are basic PAYE.
If you've got savings, get any shares dividends, want to claim relief on professional fees, income from a second job or any other source of income, it's worth doing it whatever your salary. If none of that applies, then yeah, PAYE is fine.
We just got stung with this as wife (Dr) increased her hours which pushed her over the threshold without realising. Nearly 2 years so approx £3k. They've worked out a payment plan for half and we pay the rest as a lump sum in the next SA return. Bloody annoying. As above in principle I have have no issue with it being means tested but the implementation is shockingly poor.
DT78, taxable pay doesn't include employee pension contributions so that should be taken off if it isn't already, but I haven't a p60 in front of me to tell you the answer to your Simple question. Perhaps your pay slips will make it clearer? For example.
Gross pay in tax year say.... £58000
Salary sacrifice (child care vouchers and b2w) of £4000
Employee pension contributions £5000
Your taxable pay is £49000
Net pay....a lot less due to tax and ni.
In the above example, if you weren't doing the salary sacrifice taxable pay would be £53000 and you would be taxed to reclaim 30% of the child benefit. So making extra pension contributions of £3000 gross would cost a lot less net (40% of £3k, plus 30% of your child benefit total which depends on the number of kids, less). Hence extra pension can be very attractive in this scenario.
Worth pointing out that HMRC don't decide the legislation, they just have to try and enforce it, usually at short notice, with not enough staff or training, usually done by staff earning a chunk below the average £24k a year wage.
Please direct your anger at stupid rule changes/legislation/obvious inequality towards your elected representatives.
As above, HMRC are shambolic. They've just sent me an email asking if I need any help completing my tax Return, after having previously told me they don't expect me to send one.
What MoreCashThanDash said is true, and this one was more than stupid as the £50-60k tapering bit was last minute fudge to placate voters. Originally any families with an earner greater than £50k were just going to lose it.
If you're on close to £60k and have 2 kids, your tax rate for that £10,000 is about 60%!!
2 different answers to my question! If I deducted pension contributions from the number on my p60 I’d still have to pay some back but a lot less
Understand I have had the tax relief however that does not take into account the child benefit charge. So depending on how you work it out I can potentially retain quite a large %
If you’re on close to £60k and have 2 kids, your tax rate for that £10,000 is about 60%!!
That's just one of the many "hidden" marginal tax rates that are present in our tax system. From the removal of benefits as earnings increase at the lower end to the pension tax relief taper at the upper.
2 different answers to my question! If I deducted pension contributions from the number on my p60 I’d still have to pay some back but a lot less
Use the figure as stated. That is literally the instruction they give you on the first page of the return, in fact it was automatically filled in for me this year.
We got caught by this a few years ago now. From memory it was £5k+ in total which includes a fine. Very frustrating as to be honest we didn’t even notice we received it! Plus being PAYE I wasn’t aware I had to do anything different or that the rules had changed. When challenged I was told there was a TV campaign and that negligence is no defence despite me saying I don’t tend to watch TV. I was interviewed over the phone, charged interest on the balance and fines. Given 14 days to pay! The only option for a payment plan would be through court!! So I just coughed up.
as others have said what really sticks is, like many families, our income is heavily biased to the main bread winner. I earn well over the threshold to claim, but my wife doesn’t. So we actually could earn less than others who could claim. The whole system is a bit of a joke and I suspect is forcing some people to borrow money to rectify their miss claimed benefit
First person goes part time, second person gets a part time job – you get two lots of tax-free allowance, keep the child benefits, share the parenting and both keep career progression going?
Frequently not possible. Let's not concerned with reality though this is are.
what would make more sense is the ability to fully transfer a tax allowances from one partner to another.
or means test Child benefit properly across a household.
instead we got a poorly thought out and poorly implemented lashup.
I'm trying to come up with some witty comment about being difficult to work with, obtuse, and like sending threatening letters about fines about confusing unpublicised rule changes, whilst taking years to return any tax even if you've filled out all the forms in triplicate.
Indeed Jambo, married persons tax allowance is a joke.
Its a stupid system. It means tested but only after paying you the full amount and the only way to claw it back is through a bloody self assessment.
Also the money if very often paid to your partner, unless specified otherwise its by default paid to the mother. So you are having money clawed back that you might not even have seen!
The thing is as I was now forced to submit a self assessment I just made sure I claimed for every legitimate expense. It's easy to just not bother submitting a claim for business mileage, for example, if you need register for self assessment but if you are forced to submit one because of this stupid system then I'm damn well going to fill in that bit of the form too.
I don't really have an issue with them means testing it, there are plenty of people that need the money more than I do, but they way they have implemented just seems bloody minded and Kafkaesque. The whole "you should have known" thing is bollocks, they are happy to write to you to tell you your tax code for the year.
I'm reminded of this from THHGTTG
“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
money clawed back that you might not even have seen!
Welcome to my world. I paid back £2600 that the wife had received
Indeed Jambo, married persons tax allowance is a joke.
Why on earth should people get a tax break just for being married? Subsidising people who choose to not work is daft.
as daft as removing a family benefit based on a single income rather than the household income?
This has been discussed many times and there hasn’t been an argument that has moved my opinion from…
“Yeah it isn’t fair but it is simple to administer. Also no one said life would be fair and as it really only affects relatively high earners (of which I am one) I really can’t get too worked up about it. There are far bigger injustices in the benefit system to be addressed first”
…to anything else.
for interest, I looked it up.
two parents living in the same house earning £30,000 each, will pay ~£4500 less in tax per year than a single earner earning £60,000. who would then lose any child benefit on top of that.
now I now the response will be 'rich, wealthy, blah, blah, blah' but whereever the level is set, it penalises the situation that many have chosen that one is the primary earner and the other the primary carer.
now I now the response will be ‘rich, wealthy, blah, blah, blah’ but whereever the level is set, it penalises the situation that many have chosen that one is the primary earner and the other the primary carer.
Arguably two part timers would be better economically? Otherwise after 5/10/15/18 years you end up with 50% of the population who should be at the peak of their career going back into workforce well below their potential. The UK has low productivity so that would seem like a decent nudge in the right direction.
But yea....... moaning about how the benefits system penalizes those earning £50k+. My heart bleeds at the thoight of such injustices.
I'm a bit confused (and now worried) having read this thread.. We had a baby 7 months ago but due to my income we know that we aren't due any child benefit as above the threshold. However, are people saying my wife may have inadvertently been receiving some benefit automatically? I have not completed any claim forms, SA, etc. and I am PAYE.
I use one of those old fashioned paper forms for my (mainly CB driven) tax return.
And a fountain pen.
Strangely satisfying.
Gonefishin, if you think looking after kids full time isn't working then they view would make some sense.
Gonefishin, if you think looking after kids full time isn’t working then they view would make some sense.
I have to say that I’m not sure what you mean by that. I’ve never made any such comment and I seriously doubt that the level of child benefit would cover the minimum wage if child care was supposed to pay for a parent to look after their child.
@nickewen, as was pointed out on page 1 there is some confusion between child benefit and child tax credit.
Child benefit is about 80 quid per week, and if you are getting paid that it will likely be a direct payment to an account nominated by your wife. If you are earning over £50k a proportion of that will be reclaimed through tax, upto 100% at 60k.
Tax credit is something that low income households get, unless they think you or your wife is a single parent in receipt of other benefits, it's unlikely you are getting that.
You said 'choose not to work', I am suggesting child care is work, hard, important, unpaid but it's work.
You said ‘choose not to work’, I am suggesting child care is work, hard, important, unpaid but it’s work.
There is no doubt that caring for a small child is difficult, tiring, and loses you lots of sleep. In the vernacular, it’s “hard work”.
But this is a discussion about taxation and paid employment, ie “work”.
Please don’t force a false equivalence between “hard work” and “work”. It’s not helpful.
Most folk in the uk are pretty well off given a global comparison. Anyone troubling the child benefit threshold (whether one or both parents work) certainly is. Hence both parents working in paid employment being “a choice”.
I’m not judging. We have kids, we both work since we need a certain income to support our other choices. But we could have chosen not to.
And yes, that marginal rate between 50-60k does feel harsh, but doing it better would be hard to do.
As for two folk on 30k being better off... yes, but...
Jobs where you can earn 30k on 2.5 days a week are rare. You’d need two, perfectly deconflicted, or childcare costs emerge that wipe out the gains.
Edited 4 times because I just think it's unfair!
Just been caught out with this as well , looking like about £3200 . As no real savings im wondering the best way to try and pay it back . Looks like it ill be a loan through works credit union or see If they can take the payment back through my tax. Really crap system and you still have to go ahead and stop the payments or they just keep on paying you.
As I said right at the top I was advised to keep the payments coming and put it aside. It adds (I don't know how but that's what we pay an accountant for) to NI payments somehow whether it's me or mrsws and is apparently a real ball ache to get reinstated once you cancel it.
Thank you tthew. Panic owa
@tthew Mostly true, but Child benefit is about £83 every four weeks so there is 13 payments a year totalling about £1100 per annum.
In other news; The other 'unfair' bit about the way the legislation is enforced/worded is that you cannot backdate a claim. If you are earning more than £60k at the start of the tax year and cancel the payment, but later get made redundant and end up earning less than £60K, you cant claim it back. However, HMRC can revisit any payments for 10 years.
My accountant gets me to claim child benefit and pay it back via my tax code, but HMRC get this bit wrong every year (we are borderline eligible and I have been expecting to be made redundant for some time).
As above, our friends earn more than us as a household, but claim it every year.
Its a rubbish system for many reasons.
You said ‘choose not to work’,
Ah right I understand where you are coming from. That statement was meant to reference transferring tax allowances between married couples; there was no who have kids reference. That is why I mentioned “choosing not to work” as without kids then that is what it means. It was in no way an attempt to say that looking after kids isn’t work although I can see how it would come across that way. I should have been clearer.
Anyone know if a company car benefit needs to be added to basic salary?
As far as I can work out company car benefit is already taken out in tax and doesn't need to be added to salary but confirmation would be great
@bentandbroken, thanks for that clarification, my mistake was somewhat fundamental! 🤭
flashpaul - bik value of car needs to added to your salary to get the top line figure. This may well take you over the threshold. Any other 'perks' such as healthcare also need to be added.
You can deduct pension contributions though - one of the reasons why usual advice is to increase pension contributions if you can.
Re: still claiming if you’re over 60k...
If one parent isn’t working in order to look after kids & they claim Child Benefit they get credited with a qualifying year towards state pension. If you claim it then pay it back there’s that residual bonus. One good improvement has been you can now claim the ‘zero rate’ of CB (one of the options when you claim it) so the other parent still gets the pension but it doesn't affect your tax.
But otherwise the argument above is the other reason to claim the full amount. yes, claim it in case you get to keep some! You never know, you can’t claim it in retrospect, but can always give it back if things go well and you turn out to earn more than 60k.
I was confused about this when I did this last year so maybe someone can advise.
Is this on taxable income or gross salary? (I put my gross salary)
Also should you deduct pension contributions if your pension is salary sacrifice? (I didn't deduct this either because I wasn't 100% sure and it seemed to suggest I shouldn't)
I used the number on my p60 earnings in employment. This number was my gross minus c2w and child care vouchers. It was not minus my pension. I have no idea why. This would suggest additional pension contributions wouldn’t make a difference like everyone says
the £50k threshold is taxable income so remove any pension contributions where ever they are made (private pension scheme, or employee contributions to a work scheme, or AVCs or...what ever so long as its in a pension wrapper) from your gross earnings.
first example should help explain it.
I think I’m on a sticky wicket with this one also. Genuinely didn’t know until a conversation with a colleague a week back who does SA and reckons he gets a rebate.
I do religiously take the max cycle to work vouchers so that should take my exposure down. I think our company pension is smart. Whatever that is so that might reduce it further. If it doesn’t then the Tesla I was thinking of on the employee car scheme is literally going to pay for itself next April. What with EV BIK being zero.
It’s an absurd game of monopoly isn’t it.
But yea……. moaning about how the benefits system penalizes those earning £50k+. My heart bleeds at the thoight of such injustices.
I think that is a little unfair and narrow minded, for many reasons already cited. Whats unfair is expecting people who have always been PAYE to know of a change in the rules, then expect them to SA themselves. Especially when the IR have all the details already. Then when they finally decide to inform you 3/4 years down the line to expect an immediate payment, plus fine, plus interest...well that’s not fair. I’m fortunate enough to earn over the rate where I have to pay back the full amount, doesn’t mean I’m lying on mattresses stuffed full of £20 notes, or wipe my arse with tenners. In fact because of how they set the rules based on a single persons income rather than a families, we could be worse off. For me the fact that I (my wife) had claimed CB inadvertently incorrectly is not in dispute, just why it takes 3/4 years to be notified and why; given in my opinion the System is also partly to blame, you are fined and expected to magic up around £5k (in my case) But yet we read all the time of people genuinely and consciously ripping off the benefits system in the U.K.
Especially when the IR have all the details already. Then when they finally decide to inform you 3/4 years down the line to expect an immediate payment, plus fine, plus interest…well that’s not fair
No different to any other honest error made on a self assessment, I’ve been caught by this in the past. As for the “we didnt know” it’s been all over the press for years. Even I knew about it and I don’t have kids. Also everyone who is a higher rate tax payer really should be doing a self assessment.
No different to any other honest error made on a self assessment, I’ve been caught by this in the past. As for the “we didnt know” it’s been all over the press for years. Even I knew about it and I don’t have kids. Also everyone who is a higher rate tax payer really should be doing a self assessment.
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">
</span>
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">well it is, because I wasn’t making a self assessment at the time, I do now! As for the ‘all over the press’ I didn’t know (call me a liar if you like, but given the number of people getting caught it suggests I’m not unique) I had heard about proposals in a budget years previously but no leaflets, letters or “press” that I saw? We receive a letter each year asking if there had been a change in circumstances we even notified them of pay rises....nothing. </span>
Also, why should every Higher rate earner self asses? Genuine question. I have for the last few years now, since this issue.
it’s been all over the press for years
I’ve never seen it. Mind I don’t listen to much mainstream tv or radio and don’t buy newspapers.
I would argue HMRC has failed to reach my demographic. It wouldn’t take much imagination to publicise this rule via adverts on YouTube /Podcasts/Forums/Spotify. Even motorway signs.
Why on earth couldn’t they just write to all the higher rate payers. No excuse then.
Wasn't this why they encouraged / gave people the opportunity to completely opt out when it first came out. I know we did because the tax hassle for level of return was monumentally skewed.
It wasn't very clear at the time and we nearly missed the cut off.
I'd concur that it was badly publicised at the time and not enough clear information given the implications.
Also, why should every Higher rate earner self asses? Genuine question.
As a higher rate tax payer you can be liable for additional tax on things like savings, capital gains tax, dividend payments. You can also be eligible for additional tax reliefs on things like pension contributions and charitable donations. A self assessment is the only method of sorting all that stuff out.
The fundamental issue is that as individuals we are responsible for our own tax returns and for any errors that may be there and yes I’ve been caught out in the past albeit on another issue. I didn’t get fined, although it was a distinct possibility, and I only had to pay the overdue tax. Ignorance is not and never has been a defence.
Edit. A bbc news report from 2010.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11464300
2nd Edit.
Why on earth couldn’t they just write to all the higher rate payers. No excuse then.
Be honest now, if they had done that would you actually have taken the time to sit down and read a letter like that, never mind remembering to act on it to do a SA 18 months later?
Be honest now, if they had done that would you actually have taken the time to sit down and read a letter like that, never mind remembering to act on it to do a SA 18 months later?
I think the thing with this is they probably have the data to run a letter once a year. Noone is born knowing this stuff and tax law and practice is constantly shifting. It's pretty hard for the man on the Clapham omnibus to be 100% on top of everything in our tax environment. If as a society we want to collect the taxes from individuals who fall into that less complex/less knowledgeable category then morally and practically they ought to be helped.
One good improvement has been you can now claim the ‘zero rate’ of CB (one of the options when you claim it) so the other parent still gets the pension but it doesn’t affect your tax.
This shouldn’t get buried in the noise as it’s very important.
You don’t need to claim it and bank it to pay it back if you’re over the threshold. The “zero rate” option has been there since the very beginning. We’ve used it since the rule came in as I’ve always been over the threshold and my wife stopped work when we had our first child in 2009.
Checking her NI contributions on the HMRC website shows she has full contributions and thus full state pension eligibility still.
And as for higher rate tax payers always needing to do a self assessment, that’s not true either. I have very simple affairs, and have never needed to do an SA, yet have been in the higher rate for a long time.
I take you’re point but where do you stop? How realistic is it to expect a letter every year detailing all the changes to tax law that have happened that may impact an individual? If letters get that complex and detailed the chances of anyone actually reading them, never mind understanding them, will likely go down.
This is the same argument used by campaigners against the changes to women’s state pension age. I don’t think it is a realistic proposal for that issue and I don’t think it will work on this issue either. The press is the best way to get the idea out.
If it is simple and important enough to put a national tv advert out, SURELY it is important and simple enough to send a letter out to anyone who looks to be close to the threshold of being affected by it. ESPECIALLY if HMRC think it’s fair game to fine people for not watching tv. It’s a lot more justifiable to fine someone for not paying attention to a letter from the tax man than it is for not paying attention to the filler during the tea making breaks on love island or strictly...
it’s been all over the press for years
Didn't see it, so presumably not in the media that I consume. Couple of newspaper adverts and something in the ad break on Saturday Night Takeaway doesn't really cut it.
How realistic is it to expect a letter every year detailing all the changes to tax law that have happened that may impact an individual?
It's a policy change that requires immediate action on the part of thousands of PAYE taxpayers, can lead to large sums needing to be repaid alongside fines and interest running into hundreds on top. Anyone on self-assessment would have come across the relevant section in their return paperwork, and you'd expect them to be a bit more savvy in terms of changes in allowances.
When the rules on Child Tax Credit changed, we received letters warning us - so we checked, then informed them, and cancelled the claim.
That is the minimum requirement IMO - press ads and tv ads are wholly inadequate, which is probably why HMRC voluntarily refunded our 'fine' thanks to hundreds of valid challenges from other folk.
Oh FFS it wasn't done in adverts it was covered in the press as an actual new story at the time it was announced! It didn't require "immediate change" as it was announced in 2010 and implemented in 2013. It wasn't hidden away it was front and centre done at the same time as a lot of the "austerity" measures were implemented.
To be clear I'm not saying you didn't miss it but you aren't being reasonable in expecting to be spoon fed every bit of information that "might" impact you. We all of us need to accept personal responsibility. As far as fines are concerned my personal experience is that HMRC are fairly lenient when an honest mistake is made.
i am assuming that the people on here talking about tax credits aren't the same as those talking about the taxing of child benefit? I can't see there is much overlap, if you are claiming one, then you aren't anywhere near the threshold for the other?