HMRC urges working families not to miss out on £500 tax-free boost every three months

dailyrecord.co.uk:

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is reminding working parents in Scotland not to miss out on the chance to get up to £2,000 a year to pay for regulated childcare, including holiday clubs and other out-of-school activities, during the summer holidays.Tax-Free Childcare provides thousands of eligible working families with up to £500 every three months, or £1,000 if their child is disabled, towards the cost of holiday clubs, before and after-school clubs, childminders and nurseries, and other approved childcare schemes.

For every £8 deposited into a Tax-Free Childcare online account, families will receive an additional £2 in UK Government top-up, and it is available for children aged up to 11, or 17 if the child has a disability.New Tax-Free Childcare statistics from HMRC show that 29,110 families in Scotland received up to £2,000 towards the cost of their childcare during the 2021 to 2022 tax year - up from 20,330 in the previous year.However, HMRC warns that hundreds of thousands of families could be missing out, with recent research estimating that about 1.3 million families could be eligible for this UK Government support.

Parents and carers are being urged to check their eligibility and register for Tax-Free Childcare via GOV.UK, here.Across the UK, 512,415 families used Tax-Free Childcare in the 2021 to 2022 tax year, compared to 374,135 in the 2020 to 2021 tax year.Myrtle Lloyd, HMRC’s Director General for Customer Services, said: “Tax-Free Childcare can make a big difference to families, helping with the bills for things like nurseries, childminders and after school clubs.”Helen Whately, HM Treasury’s Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said: “It’s fantastic that more parents are taking up Tax-Free Childcare.