Thousands Of Parents Miss Child Benefit Self-Assessment Deadline

Thousands Of Parents Miss Child Benefit Self-Assessment Deadline

Have you registered with HMRC to keep your child benefit?

An estimated 165,000 people have missed the deadline after rule changes left better-off families having to sign up and self-assess their eligibility to continue to receive their payments.

Around 29,000 people are said to have registered in the final hours before the deadline at the end of Saturday, but the HMRC said that those who have yet to fill in the forms could still complete the paperwork.

The new system, which was introduced in January this year, only affects families where one parent has a taxable income of more than £50,000.

Those who earn more than 50k will lose some of their benefit, while it will be stopped altogether if one parents earns more that £60,000.

The payments for eligible families currently stands at £20.30 per week for the first child and £13.40 a week for other siblings.

The BBC reports that HMRC chief executive Lin Homer said on Friday that thousands of people needed to 'get off their backsides' and register by the end of Saturday.

Yesterday, a tax authority spokesman said they expected more people to register in the coming days, and that although the deadline had past, people should still sign up for self-assessment to minimise any penalties they may face.

The fines would be between 10 per cent and 100 per cent of the child benefit paid, in addition to refunding the appropriate amount, however, the BBC claims that 'in practice, it is expected that anyone who signs up and pays the tax due by 31 January will not receive a penalty'.

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