Boarding and childcare vouchers

[ZooZoo]

Hi all. Does anyone know the answer to this question please? Any employed person can have about £3,000 childcare vouchers, deducted from gross salary. These are usually associated with pre schoolers but actually you can use them to pay for children up to 16, but only for after school care, not the main school day. Some boarding schools now accept those vouchers for the boarding element of the yearly fees. Does anyone know if White Lodge, Elmhurst, Tring or Hammond do this? All that needs to happen is that the school separates out the day and boarding element, although there may also be an interaction between using vouchers and the MDS scheme. Not sure how that might work. Has anyone tried this? It would mean, for a higher rate taxpayer, that the boarding element could be reduced by 40%....every little helps.......

[tomuchtallent]

My son started boarding this September and I noticed his school offer the same.I think it must apply to all boarding school.What a great discount.Very worth while looking into for those that don't get a mds.

[taxi4ballet]

Is everyone entitled to childcare vouchers, then? I thought it was to do with tax credits and for lower-income families.

[Picturesinthefirelight]

They are offered by some employers as a salary sacrifice scheme do the value is deducted from your gross pay before tax & national insurance.

 

 

 

 

[Balletgirlsplease]

Even of you do get MDAS but still have to pay some fees you could use this scheme I imagine. As long as your workplace do the scheme and the school accept the vouchers. I used to get busy bees vouchers in my wage slip to you for nursery fees and they came out of your salary before NI and tax so was a good saving. My DH has recently bought a bicycle through a similar scheme.

[ZooZoo]

Tomuchtalent - is your son at one of the big four then? Would be great to know that this is possible at some or all of them (basically even with a MDS we would struggle as one of our children had to go private for personal reasons even though we can't really afford it............)

[Stirrups36]

At least one of the 'big four' finds the administration too onerous a task... So will not do this. Even though St Ethelburga's school (google it) had some very good advice about doing so to aid their parents.

 

Be careful with salary sacrifice, as if you have some partial form of benefits as well, the salary sacrifice can cause problems and reduce these by more than the salary sacrifice scheme.

 

If the schools did accept this, then it would be VERY helpful, and would have been even more helpful last year before they changed the tax brackets.

 

Maybe it's time to ask again.

[tomuchtallent]

Suzyszoo-

sorry I didn't mention but he is not at vocational school

But this is very worth looking into more as it is obviously true for some boarding schools.

[Nana Lily]

If your child's vocation school accepts CCV'S and you pay full fees there is no issue, where it becomes more complex is if your child has an MDS award.

 

CCV's as others have pointed out are for care outside normal school hours up to the age of 15. The schools publish fees for day and boarders. It's very transparent. Since the boarding aspect of the fees are minimal incomparison to the total fees, the amount of funding a child receives would generally be more than the fees for boarding. If the parental contribution is so great that the funding received from MDS was less than the fees for boarding, potentially CCV's could be used. However on the MDS forms you have to declare all salary sacrifice schemes you have or are participating in (yes including the one for bikes!)

 

If you are a higher rate tax payer, under the revised conditions of the CCV'S scheme you will only benefit from the basic rate tax. If you were purchasing vouchers before the changes you are still eligible for higher rate benefits.

 

It's easy to see why's some schools are reluctant to implement the scheme, since they will have to pay for the service for very little benefit for the majority of parents. That said of course very little helps!

[ZooZoo]

hi again - so can I ask then. On the MDS forms, will my salary of say, £20,000 be taken as the gross salary or £17,000 (once the £3000 or so vouchers come off?). Only the lower amount goes on a P60 so I thought it would be that.................