Commercial law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has switched its childcare voucher provider and communicated the tax changes that came in on 6 April to its 1,200 UK staff.
Despite offering childcare vouchers for many years, BLP switched providers to KiddiVouchers at the beginning of March to ease the administrative burden, to take advantage of a lower annual management charge of 2.5%, and to offer better service to its employees.
Melissa Small, HR advisor at BLP said: “We did quite a lot of promotion around it, including a couple of roadshows in our staff canteen with KiddiVouchers, two rounds of poster campaigns, and various email communications as well.”
From 6 April 2011, only basic-rate taxpayers can receive full tax and national insurance (NI) relief on up to £55 a week. Tax relief will be restricted to £28 for 40% and £22 for 50% taxpayers. Those already in the scheme will not be affected.
Small added: “We did think about that when we were moving providers which is why we wanted to do it pre-6 April. We wanted to advertise it to all employees, not only the ones that were already in the scheme, but also those who wanted to enter the scheme and still benefit from the old tax rules.”
Read more articles on childcare voucher tax changes
Childcare voucher commission of 2.5% is as low as any, maybe lower than any other, of the rates offered by voucher providers. But why use a voucher provider at all? All the necessary materials can be bought at a very modest flat fee and paying voucher money to carers is just as easy for an employer as paying its suppliers or its employees.