Producing your own childcare vouchers?

[asherplanning]

Hello, I am a freelancer set up as a ltd company, I am the only employee of the company. I understand that I can run my own childcare voucher scheme, but not sure exactly how. Do any of you do this, and what do you do? Many thanks.

[Fuschia]

Contact Accor/edenred

You buy into their service and they will talk it all through with you

Avoid busy bees, who are cheaper but rubbish

[Yak]

We do this for Mr Y. I can't remember how we picked them but we use Computershare Vouchers - they send you a pack of info and talk you through it on the phone. It's pretty straightforward and easy to use.

[bumpy]

Yep we also use http://www.computersharevoucherservices.com/ who are easy and do the necessary

[Carbonara]

You don't need to use a third party scheme like ACCOR / Busy Bees etc at all. For a small employer (your company) the costs will balance out the savings.

All that is needed (I think - check it all through with your company accountant) is that you set it up as a salary sacrifice, and instead of the nursery invoicing you for the amount of allowed off-settable fees, they invoice your employer and the employer pays that part of the nursery bill, and deducts that amount from your salary.

My employer, a small third sector company, paid the nursery direct. I received a letter changing my T&C, outlining the terms of the salary sacrifice.

I think you can find all this on the HMRC website.

The downsides of salary sacrifice schemes like this are that any redundancy, pension, maternity etc entitlements are based on your new (lower) taxed salary. This is unlikely to be an issue for you, though.

[asherplanning]

Thanks all! I think what Carbonara outlines is the best way to go, and have talked through it with my accountant. I found a good summary of the options here:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childcare/smechildcareguide.pdf