24 November 2017
Tax-Free Childcare roll-out continues
From today, those responsible for children born on or after 24th November 2011 are eligible to claim help through the Tax-Free Childcare scheme. That means those with children under 6 (or whose 6th birthday falls on 24 November 2017) are eligible to claim, previously only those responsible for a child born or of after 1 April 2013 could submit a claim.
Those who are responsible for a disabled child (until the last day of the week in which the 1st September following their 16th Birthday falls) are also eligible to claim.
If a claim is possible due to the age of the youngest child in the family, any older siblings who normally live in the same household as the younger child can be included in the claim.
According to the GOV.UK announcement, the roll-out of TFC should be complete by March 2018 (as opposed to December 2017 as previously announced).
We are currently writing detailed guidance on the TFC scheme for this website, in the meantime there is information about TFC and other childcare schemes on the main LITRG website.
In addition a number of TFC regulations have been published:
SI 1116/2017 – This is the commencement order for the latest stage of roll-out
SI 1096/2017 – These regulations amend the Childcare Payment Regulations 2015. Amendments have been made to allow the length of entitlement periods to be varied where two people form a couple and extend compensation payments to those who are unable to open a childcare account or their account fails to function effectively for at least 14 days due to a serious technical failure affecting HMRC or NS&I.
SI 1101/207 – These regulations amend the main childcare eligibility regulations. Numerous small amendments are contained in these regulations.