We have had a few parents in our organisation asking about the salary sacrifice childcare support services that are being promoted by companies such as Bright Horizons. I spoke with our global employee benefits broker (Aon) about this who advised against it because the advice from HMRC on the validity of such schemes was not clear. Has anyone ever set such a scheme up and if so, how did you address the tax questions? Thanks
Here's a further article on this issue: https://reba.global/resource/expert-view-childcare-costs-why-workplace-nurseries-are-more-than-child-s-play.html
It certainly seems that caution should be taken when considering these schemes.
We conducted a review of this and obtained tax advice as it did look a bit too good to be true! The advice we also received was that unless you intend to be quite heavily involved in the running of the designated 'workplace' nurseries, which we weren't, then HMRC would not accept this.
I'll read next months article on this with interest.
I had a similar conversation (same broker) but I also spoke to one of the companies direct following an employee enquiry.
I asked them some specific questions around in relation to how they complied with the HMRC ruling and never got an answer back, so we've decided to stay away from it completely.
Hi Paul,
We ran an article on this issue last year as HMRC announced it was cracking down on workplace nursery schemes that didn't meet its criteria: https://reba.global/resource/how-employers-can-help-working-parents-with-childcare-costs.html
We're aware that this is an ongoing issue, so we've also commissioned an article from one of our tax experts delving into the pros and cons of these schemes. It's due to be published next month - I'll post the link here once it's live.