childcare vouchers in lieu of child maintenance ?

Before we started moving towards separation my spouse and I were both receiving part of our salary in tax free childcare vouchers from our employers. At the point where our childcare costs reduced such that we did not need to take the full amount each month ex absolutely insisted, in fact yelled at me to intimidate me into doing it their way, that they kept theirs at the maximum and I reduce mine to a small balancing amount bringing us up to the amount we now needed.

The issue of child maintenance has now been raised and it appears that ex wants to keep receiving tax free childcare vouchers from their employer and use these to count as part of the monthly maintenance payment.

Hence ex will be saving 40% tax on half of the monthly maintenance bill. Ex also made a point of the fact that my net pay had increased at the point where I reduced the amount of childcare vouchers being received.

I feel I, and any financial mediator involved are being hoodwinked here.

Does anyone have any experience in this field. Should ex even be able to receive childcare vouchers if children live with me all week and every other weekend ?

Thanks for reading, any advice would be appreciated.

Hi
I assume the alternative is that you get all the tax benefit from the childcare vouchers and your ex does not and pays you CM in 'cash'. You could point out that the childcare vouchers can't be used to buy food for the children
I think that it is reasonable for you to insist on 'cash' , but might be worth checking with ex how quickly his employer can make this change, some employers only allow this change once a year and you might want to offer to allow him to continue until the change can be made.

LB

There is no reason why your ex can't continue to use the salary sacrifice system; the children are still his.
It seems the issue here is that you are concerned about the equality of all this. Can you not now increase the amount you sacrifice? I use this system myself and the saving is around £70 pcm in tax as the max you can sacrifice is £243. So long as you are aware of this, there's little chance of you being hoodwinked and £70 pcm is nothing in the big scheme of financial mediation.
As a single parent you will now be entitled to receive more in tax credits and you don't legally (although this doesn't mean morally) have to share this with your ex. Perhaps this is the balance to him keeping the small perk of salary sacrifice?

You need to have a word with Tax Credits and see if you are now eligible to receive the childcare element as whether or not it is reasonable probably hinges on this.

If you are eligible to receive the childcare element of Tax Credits, you will need to discuss with them whether or not it is OK to receive vouchers from your ex husband on top of this. I know that for some people who are around the thresholds, it's better to go with Tax Credits and for others the vouchers. I do know that there is an issue with using both and I'm sorry, but off the top of my head, I'm not sure I know what it is. Please do talk to Tax Credits in detail and make sure you understand what you can and can't accept as the Tax Credit award will be in your name and you will be the one having to pay back any overpayments. Sorry - I know that doesn't make a lot of sense. When I have five minutes, I'll have a google and see what I can come up with!

If you're not eligible for the childcare aspect of Tax Credits then you might as well take the offer for the sake of keeping the peace - it's just £243 you'll have in your hand from not having to pay childcare and whilst I would suggest it's very controlling of him, it doesn't make much difference. The rub could come when you no longer need that amount in childcare vouchers.....

I've two friends who recently divorced, both work full time, and both children are in childcare as theyre twins.

They were advised to claim the childcare vouchers for their own parenting times (they have 50:50 shared parenting), and not to give either parent their vouchers as part of CM. It was something to do with tax evasion, and the fact that you dont pay tax on the vouchers which then makes it a lesser percentage of your income or something like that.

I dont know the ins and outs though, although I know Mum now claims Tax credit and Child Benefit and Dad pays CM on top.

Its a bit of a mine field and from my own past experience albeit a few years ago, you really want to avoid any overpayments in tax credits............