Childcare vouchers are being sold hard by childcare voucher companies. They may also be sold hard by employers wanting to reduce the employment costs of their employees.

Both of these groups hand off the advice for employees over to the Inland Revenue and our friends on the Helpline.

The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group are worried about the impact on the poorer end of the tax credits market due to the fact that such people taking vouchers could be well out of pocket.

We have tried to identify the factors which have to be taken into account and have published two articles on our website at www.litrg.org.uk.

Like with all things to do with tax credits it is horrendously complex and can change at a moment's notice. But I can see the voluntary sector having to pick up the pieces unless we can all persuade the Revenue to provide real, high quality advice to people in doubt. It is after all a government sponsored initiative.

We will be trying to accumulate experience of advice given by the Revenue. Feel free to let us have any via our website.

for further background on this see

http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/cgi-bin/forwardsql/search.cgi?template2=user_details2.htm&output_number=1&news.ID=4712429402

The TUC's web-site www.workSMART has a really good summary about this