What you need to know about childcare vouchers
If your staff have children that are under the school age, they may be eligible for either employer-run tax-efficient childcare vouchers or the new government tax free childcare scheme. This enables your money to go further with the cost of caring for their children whilst they’re at work. Depending on the age of your employees’ children, they could benefit by different amounts to help with the cost of childcare. (There are different allowance rules for children aged up to 11, 15 or 16, depending on the scheme and the child.) As an employer, you know it helps to support your employees and their families.
The current information given by the government about the childcare scheme options is important to digest fully, as people could be forgiven for missing opportunities for financial support. By following our tips below and using the childcare calculator, you’ll be able to help your employees understand what support they’re eligible for, which could help to alleviate the pressures on the individual and their family financially. It’s not easy to say which scheme is best as it depends on so many factors. You also need a childcare voucher scheme in place as employees who want this arrangement need to opt into it before April 2018. After this their only option will be the government run tax free childcare.
We suggest you re-launch or promote your childcare voucher scheme AND information tax free childcare via the childcare calculator. The childcare calculator will take around 10 minutes to complete and will take you through a series of questions to clarify how much your employees currently spend on childcare, what their household income is and whether your employees’ children currently receive any benefits.
As an employer, you’ll want to ensure all your employees are able to come to work each day with a fresh, focused mind and wherever possible help to remove any stress that could build up outside of work. By encouraging your employees to use the childcare calculator, you could ensure they save hundreds to thousands of pounds over the years. Plus it could mean you keep your valuable employees through this time, saving on recruitment, training and talent costs.
To offer your employees more financial support and insight into how they can manage their money effectively, you can contact Better with Money today and discuss with us how we can educate your employees to give them greater financial freedom.