Grandparent and working tax credit

I've heard people talking about this, but was wondering if it is right. Here goes......

If my mother in law was to register has a child minder, could she look after babycamrat as a full time occupation and would we be able to claim back some of the money under the working tax credit rules?

i know the amounts you can claim back are dependant on the amount you earn, I'm just wondering if in principal this is something that we can do???

Not sure about the working tax credit stuff - but I do know that if she was going to register with the intention of looking after her grandchild - she would have to at least be willing to look after other kids too. I don't think you can use this route JUST to look after a member of the family. Check with Childrens Info Service - they'll probably know the ins and outs!

no, you couldn't claim tax credits back for that. the rules are very specific regarding family members caring for a child. might be worth ringing to check whether you could get the tax credits if she took in other kids too, but i sincerely doubt it would work like that.

I am a bit out of date now, as I stopped childminding a couple of years ago, but when I was on the introductory course there were quite a few grandparents doing the course to register, with the intention of looking after their grandchildren. At that time it was completely acceptable.

If you are on working tax credit and child tax credit you are entitled to reclaim up to 70% of your childcare costs, so long as your child is in the care of a registered childminder. It doesn't matter if the registered childminder is a relative, so long as it isn't a parent of the child. As far as I know!

I have just found this link, but again it is from 2005, so I don't know if it is up to date

http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:KXqR7Hy0SPQJ:www.litrg.org.uk/news/latest.cfm%3Fid%3D235+grandparent+registered+childminder&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk

my grandparents found a lot of useful information from the grandparents Federation. The email address is; [email protected].

I can't put the website address on because I've not had five posts, but PM me if you need it.

Ashlee

I was under the impression you had to employ a qualified child minder to be able to claim money from tax credits?

I'm going to make an appointment at the CAB to go over what we can claim etc so I'll mention it then and report back as to the law at the moment.

Thanks for that Camrat

I was under the impression you had to employ a qualified child minder to be able to claim money from tax credits?

They have to be Registered (with OFSTED) - so can't claim them if using a nanny (as they don't have to be registered).

From what I remember from my time at the jobcentreplus, I know this is an inland revenue issue but you wouldn't believe the amount of people that don't know that...anyway, I remember this being a sticky issue and I can't fully remember the rules around it but I believe that any family member be it father, mother, uncle, grandad, sister etc (You get my point....) cannot look after the child and you claim child care costs, however if they are registered childminders and also care for other children as mentioned above (If they just care for your child then that is also a no-no, and they will check) but yeah, if they care for other children also then I don't believe that is an issue.

Might be worth looking at

I was talking to someone only yesterday about this at a book fayre I was at and she was a grandparent who used to be a registered childminder. Her daughter now has children and she was going to re register so that she could look after them but she was told that she cant. I asked even if its a different surname and she still said no as you have to declare any connection between the childminder and the person wanting their children looked after.

It has all completely changed in the last few years then! When I was doing my childminding training they were deliberately marketing it to grandparents and saying how wonderful it was that they had this opportunity to care for their grandchildren, and that their children could claim working family tax credits and pay them!