My two year old son has started going to child care two days a week. Anyways, while I was organising all the paperwork for the child care payments, it struck me that I had forgotten to write about one important eligibility criteria for the 50% child care tax rebate - It is the ‘work, training, study test’ criteria.

Basically to qualify for the rebate, you need to have a work, or work related commitment at some point during the week. Family Assistance Office defines the work related commitment as one of the following:

* Paid work or self employment
* Setting up a business
* Training or studying
* Looking for work
* Voluntary work to improve your work skills

With the new budget, we know that we can claim this rebate quarterly. But here is an important piece of information regarding quarterly payments (direct quote from the family assistance office website) -

“If you want to receive your Child Care Tax Rebate as a quarterly payment, you must claim Child Care Benefit as reduced fees, even if you are assessed as eligible for Child Care Benefit but at a zero rate.”

So like me, if you want to claim your rebate at the end of each quarter, ring the Family Assistance Office as soon as your child starts going to care. Give them the details of which centre your child is going to. They will ask you if want to claim the minimum child care benefit or claim an amount based on an estimate of your current year’s income. Choose whichever option you feel comfortable with. They will then contact the child care provider and inform them of your entitlement. Child care provider will then charge you a net fee (original fee minus your child care benefit entitlement).

If you do end up getting more benefit than you are entitled to (because you overestimated your income), then you will have to pay them back at the end of the year. If you claimed less then they will pay you the extra amount at the end of the year.

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Topics: Government Payments, Taxes |

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