If you should have paid the High Income Child Benefit Charge in earlier years and did not, HMRC can collect the charge for those years with late payment interest and, unless you had a reasonable excuse, a failure to notify penalty. For a careless or innocent failure the penalty is at most 30% of the unpaid charge and can be reduced to nil if you tell HMRC before it contacts you and within 12 months of the tax being due. The sooner you come forward, the cheaper it is.

How do you know whether you owed the charge?

Section 681B of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 makes a person liable for a tax year if their adjusted net income is over the threshold and either they are entitled to Child Benefit, or their partner is, and they have the higher adjusted net income of the two. The threshold has changed:

  • 2024 to 2025 onwards: over £60,000, with 1% of the benefit taken back for every £200 above that, so the whole benefit is taken back at £80,000.
  • 2023 to 2024 and earlier: over £50,000, with 1% taken back for every £100 above that.

The charge was introduced in 2012 to 2013, so no year before that is affected. A “partner” under section 681G is a spouse or civil partner you are not separated from, or someone you live with as if you were married or civil partners. The charge can fall on someone who never received a penny, because it is the higher earner who pays, not the claimant. If you cannot get the facts from a partner or former partner, HMRC will answer in writing whether they got Child Benefit or had a higher income than you, with a simple yes or no. Adjusted net income includes savings interest and dividends, which is how many people are caught; see adjusted net income.

What should you have done at the time?

If you do not usually send a tax return, HMRC says you need to tell it by 5 October after the end of the tax year in which the charge arose, by registering for Self Assessment, and then file a return and pay by 31 January. There is also an online service to pay the charge through your PAYE tax code instead. That route is only open if you have no other reason to file a return, you are dealing with the current or previous tax year, and it is on or before 31 January after the tax year concerned. For example, the charge for 2025 to 2026 can still be set up through PAYE until 31 January 2027. Anything older has to go through Self Assessment.

What penalties can apply?

Not registering by 5 October is a failure to notify. The penalty is a percentage of the “potential lost revenue”, which here is broadly the unpaid charge. HMRC’s factsheet CC/FS11 sets out the ranges:

Behaviour Unprompted disclosure Prompted disclosure
Non deliberate, told within 12 months of tax being due 0% to 30% 10% to 30%
Non deliberate, 12 months or more after tax was due 10% to 30% 20% to 30%
Deliberate 20% to 70% 35% to 70%
Deliberate and concealed 30% to 100% 50% to 100%

A disclosure is unprompted if you tell HMRC before you had reason to believe it was about to find the problem. Where in the range you end up depends on the quality of your disclosure: HMRC gives up to 30% reduction for telling, up to 40% for helping and up to 30% for giving access to records. If it has taken you 3 years or more to come forward, HMRC will usually restrict the reduction so you do not get the lowest rate. Late payment interest, currently set at Bank of England base rate plus 4%, runs on the charge from the date it should have been paid. Our guide to failure to notify penalties covers the regime in more depth.

Could you have a reasonable excuse?

HMRC will not charge a failure to notify penalty if you had a reasonable excuse, the failure was not deliberate, and you told HMRC without unreasonable delay once the excuse ended. A reasonable excuse is something that stopped you meeting the obligation despite taking reasonable care, and HMRC says it depends on your circumstances and abilities, so what works for one person may not for another.

The charge has a history here. In 2018 HMRC reviewed failure to notify penalties for 2013 to 2014, 2014 to 2015 and 2015 to 2016. It accepted reasonable excuses where the family had claimed Child Benefit before the charge was introduced and one partner’s income later rose over £50,000, and where liability arose because a new partnership was formed. HMRC reviewed 35,000 cases and cancelled the penalties of over 6,000 people, with refunds of £1.8 million in 4,885 cases. Those decisions were tied to that period and to people who had not been contacted by HMRC, but they show the kind of facts worth putting forward. See also reasonable excuse.

How far back can HMRC go?

The Taxes Management Act 1970 sets the time limits for assessments:

  • 4 years after the end of the tax year as the ordinary limit (section 34);
  • 6 years where the loss of tax was brought about carelessly (section 36(1));
  • 20 years where the loss was brought about deliberately or is attributable to a failure to notify under section 7 (section 36(1A)).

Because not registering is itself a failure to notify, HMRC can in principle reach back to 2012 to 2013. Section 118(2) of the same Act treats a person with a reasonable excuse as not having failed, provided they put things right without unreasonable delay once the excuse ended, which is why establishing an excuse can affect how far back HMRC can assess as well as the penalty.

You may have read that HMRC’s assessments for this charge were held invalid by the courts. Section 97 of the Finance Act 2022 changed the wording of the discovery assessment rule in section 29 of the 1970 Act for 2021 to 2022 onwards, and also protected earlier discovery assessments of the charge, unless an appeal raising that point had been made by 30 June 2021. For most people that argument is now closed.

How do you put it right?

  1. List the years. For each year since the charge began, check whether you or a partner received Child Benefit and who had the higher adjusted net income.
  2. Work out each charge using the threshold and taper for that year. HMRC’s Child Benefit tax calculator gives an estimate.
  3. Tell HMRC. Register for Self Assessment so HMRC can issue returns for the years concerned, or use HMRC’s online service for telling it about underpaid tax from previous years, which comes with calculators for tax, interest and penalties. Our page on the Digital Disclosure Service explains how disclosures work.
  4. Explain any excuse in writing at the same time, so HMRC considers it before setting a penalty.
  5. Pay the charge and interest, or contact HMRC early if you need time to pay.

What does that look like in practice?

Illustration only. Priya’s adjusted net income was £66,000 in both 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026. Her partner received Child Benefit throughout, assumed here to be £1,300 a year. In each year her charge is 30% (£6,000 over the threshold divided by £200), so £390.

  • 2024 to 2025: the charge was due on 31 January 2026. If she tells HMRC now, in October 2026, before HMRC contacts her, the disclosure is unprompted and within 12 months, so the penalty range for a non deliberate failure starts at 0%. Interest runs from 31 January 2026.
  • 2025 to 2026: the 5 October 2026 notification date has passed, but she can still use the PAYE service until 31 January 2027, or register for Self Assessment and pay by that date.

What about this year and next?

Once the past is dealt with, decide how the charge will be handled going forward. You can keep the payments and pay through PAYE or Self Assessment, or opt out of the payments while staying registered for the National Insurance credits. Opting out does not cancel the charge on payments already received. Our guide should you stop child benefit payments works through that choice.

If HMRC opens a check into your return, tax investigation insurance pays your accountant’s fees. Solar Protect cover pays up to £100,000 with no excess; it never pays tax, interest or penalties. Read how our cover works or get a quote.

Related Accountapedia entries

Sources

Reviewed by Christine Anderson, Broker, Solar Protect. Last reviewed 19 October 2026. Part of Accountapedia, the Solar Protect guide to UK tax and accounting. This page is general information, not personalised advice.