Child Benefit, pensions for parents and higher earners

[PennyUK]

One of the side benefits of claiming Child Benefit is that the claimant also gets National Insurance credits towards the state pension, even if they are not earning in their own right - an important protection for stay-at-home parents.

However, since 2013, a change in the rules means that if one parent earns more than £60,000, than any Child Benefit claimed has to be paid back, making their tax affairs a bit more complex, and hence the obvious thing to do is to skip claiming Child Benefit in the first place. However, this also means they don't get the National Insurance credits which will affect their future state pension.

According to a couple of news reports, a significant number - around 38,000 - of woman haven't being claiming Child Benefit, and this number is set to rise by about 20,000 each year - seehttp://www.moneywise.co.uk/news/2016-11-12/womens-pensions-hit-child-benefit-rule-change and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37951066.

The reports say you can claim a Nil rate Child Benefit and hence get the NI credits: and if you were claiming them before the rules changed you will also continue to get the NI credits.

Please let anyone who may be affected know about this as well! It's really important! Not claiming may seem sensible in the short term, but will have a longterm financial dis-benefit to the AH parent.

[Stonge]

Very important.

This used to be called Home Responsibilities Protection but changed.

https://www.gov.uk/home-responsibilitie ... p/overview

https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance-c ... ligibility