Hot Topic – Child Benefit…continued

I was interested to read various articles talking about the continuing saga of the child benefit changes last week – many of them are quoting the figure that 500,000 families will now have to fill in a self-assessment form.

The editor of MoneyWeek makes an interesting point too – she questions how come so many people falling within the income bracket that will get child benefit clawed back are not in self-assessment anyway? They will have used all their personal allowance and the basic rate threshold which means that any savings/investment income they receive is taxable – including interest on any current account (however paltry!). The increasing numbers we read about with second properties – they should be self-assessing the rent they receive.

Is it the case that any savings are ALL in ISAs? It seems unlikely.

The High Income Child Benefit Charge has created a lot of media interest – but could it be as MoneyWeek suggests – that in fact an unexpected side effect is that higher rate taxpayers who had inadvertently (or not) been avoiding higher rate tax on any income they receive beyond their PAYE income will now actually start to pay?!