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A way round the 2 child limit on CTC?
The scenario is that two children (7 and 11) have been placed with their adult sister by the Local Authority. CB and CTC are in payment for both the children as is a Special Guardianship Allowance paid by the Local Authority. The elder sister has now given birth to her own child and been told by HMRC that she is caught by the 2 child limit which was introduced in April 2017. Now there’s no doubt that the two children placed by the Local Authority would count as exceptions to the 2 child limit if either of them was the third child. The problem is that it is the new born child (who is not an exception) who counts as the third child; hence the 2 child limit bites. It is clear that exceptions only apply to the third child and any and subsequent children. Just for completeness the two children placed by the Local Authority were placed with the elder sister 2 years ago so there’s nothing to gain from the 10 month period following the placement of the two young ones. So the question is, has anyone got any ideas on how to get one of the younger children off the CTC claim, then put the newly born child on the claim as child 2 and then put the one taken off the claim (who counts as an exception) back on the claim as child 3?
Many thanks
Darren Hull WRS
This scenario is inevitable with the rules as they are and is something we have to think about when advising someone about taking on the care of any children who are family members. I really hope your client wants to take this up with her MP, the Children’s Minister and anyone else who will listen.
This scenario is inevitable with the rules as they are…
Ideally we were looking for suggestions about how to deal the with the problem.
Can she just remove a child from her TC award and replace it with her own?
Steve Hull WRS
I know this isn’t what you want to hear but I don’t think it would work to just take the child off the claim for a while. When they order the children the date that is key is the date the child is born (if it’s their own child) or the date they took responsibility for the child. So the new child will always be the third child unless they somehow give up responsibility for one of the other children for a while.
It’s the sort of case that CPAG might be willing to try and take a test case on - http://www.cpag.org.uk/test-case-referrals - but that isn’t going to help your client in the short term.
I know this isn’t what you want to hear but I don’t think it would work to just take the child off the claim for a while. When they order the children the date that is key is the date the child is born (if it’s their own child) or the date they took responsibility for the child. So the new child will always be the third child unless they somehow give up responsibility for one of the other children for a while.
It’s the sort of case that CPAG might be willing to try and take a test case on - http://www.cpag.org.uk/test-case-referrals - but that isn’t going to help your client in the short term.
The date of responsibility is an interesting one. I asked both HMRC and DWP a similar question to this when the policy was being developed and I don’t think I got an answer.
If the date of responsibility relates to the first ever responsibility then the newborn child would always be the third. But if responsibility was given up (for a short period) and then gained again, could that change the date of responsibility under the regs? If it could that would make them the third child and there could be an exception applied.
I’m musing out loud here of course, but as Daphne says worth a chat with CPAG.
Victoria