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tinyacorns

Help with Childcare Costs

There are a range of ways you can make savings on your childcare costs. The three main ways are:

  • • Salary Sacrifice and pay with voucher payments
  • • Tax-free childcare
  • • Government Funding – 15 or 30 hours free childcare

 

Salary Sacrifice and voucher payment - save tax and N.I.

If your employer operates a childcare voucher scheme, you can save National Insurance and Income Tax. By registering for your employer's scheme, up to £55 a week can be deducted from your salary and used to provide childcare vouchers for the same amount. This amount, which is deducted from your gross salary, is then exempt from National Insurance and Income Tax.

Voucher Providers
We accept vouchers from the following companies:

  • • Accor Services
  • • Edenred
  • • Care-4 
  • • Sodexho PASS
  • • Mid-Counties Cooperative
  • • Allsave
  • • Faircare
  • • Childcare Plus
  • • Computershare
  • • Kids Unlimited
  • • Kiddivouchers

If your employer uses a different provider, our nursery manager will liaise with you to make the necessary arrangements.

Redeeming your vouchers
If you receive paper vouchers, they can be handed in at the nursery to be redeemed each month against your fees, or you can redeem the voucher yourself.

Alternatively, many providers now offer an automatic redemption process. Once you have made this arrangement, the redemption takes place at the same time each month, without any further action needed on your part. If you pay the balance of your fees by direct debit, once we know that you are redeeming childcare vouchers automatically, we will only ever take your invoice total less your monthly voucher payment.

If you have more than one child at the nursery, you can choose whether the voucher payment is split between your accounts, or redeemed against just one account.

Tax-free Childcare

Tax Free Childcare is a way of claiming a top-up benefit from the government for childcare costs. The HMRC website describes this benefit as follows:

Parents will be able to open a new childcare account. For every £8 a parent pays into their childcare account, the government will pay in an extra £2. Parents can get up to £2000 government support per child per year towards their childcare costs. They can then use this money to pay their childcare provider.

The government has started inviting parents to apply for Tax-Free Childcare beginning with parents of the youngest children first. Check whether Tax-Free Childcare is the best offer for you using the childcare calculator.

Parents will only be able to pay their childcare provider from their childcare account if their childcare provider is signed up to Tax-Free Childcare. While parents cant make payments using both Tax-Free Childcare and childcare vouchers, childcare providers who are signed up to Tax-Free Childcare can receive payments from both schemes.

You're usually eligible if all of the following apply:

Your child:

  • • is under 12, or 17 if they're registered as having a disability
  • • usually lives with you

You (and your partner, if you have one):

  • • are 16 or over
  • • live or work in the UK
  • • are employed or self-employed
  • • are over 21 and earn on average at least £120 a week, unless in your first year of self-employment. Different rates apply if you're under 21 or an apprentice
  • • earn less than £100,000 a year each
  • • don't get other support with your childcare, including from a childcare voucher or salary sacrifice scheme

You may also be eligible if you have a partner and one of you gets any of the following benefits:

  • • Carers Allowance
  • • Employment and Support Allowance
  • • Incapacity Benefit
  • • Severe Disablement Benefit

You can read more here:

https://childcare-support.tax.service.gov.uk/par/app/eligibility

Government Funding

Tiny Acorns offers both the Universal 15 hours funding for all children from the term after their third birthday, and the Extended funding, which was introduced in August 2017 and offers a further 15 hours for eligible families.

Access to the Extended funding has certain conditions. The term before your child turns three we will provide a full handout which explains how both types of funding work and how to access them.