Child care, charity and property updates

News: April 2013

Child care, charity and property updates

Tax-free childcare scheme

This new idea will eventually be worth up to £1,200 per child, and so will save a typical working family with two children under 12 up to £2,400 a year.

It will not be phased in until Autumn 2015 and will ultimately be open to around 2.5 million families with children under 12. From the first year of operation, all children under 5 will be eligible so initially opening the scheme to 1.3 million families. The scheme will build up over time to include children under 12.

To be eligible, families will have both parents in work with each earning less than £150,000 a year, and will not already receive support through tax credits and later, Universal Credit. They will receive 20% of their yearly childcare costs up to £6,000 per child.

Charities get online gift aid service

HMRC have written to 110,000 charities and Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASCs) informing them that from 22 April 2013 they can enrol to make repayment claims online through the HMRC website. The new service, called Charities Online, is being introduced in response to feedback from charities. They will be able to get information on how to use the system from the HMRC website.

Separately, the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme is also being introduced in April. This will allow charities and CASCs to claim top-up payments on cash donations of £20 or less without the need to collect Gift Aid declarations. Charities will generally be able to claim payments on small donations up to £5,000 each year.

HMRC property sales campaign

Another campaign has been announced, and this time it covers someone who has sold a residential property (UK or overseas) that is not their main home and has made a profit which has not been declared.

As always, other undeclared gains (and indeed income) can be covered under this campaign and it certainly helps to reduce penalties as well as making the disclosure easier than contacting HMRC in any other way.