FamilyBoost payment increased, income limit raised
The Finance Minister says thousand of families will benefit from the changes to FamilyBoost revealed this morning.
Nicola Wills has announced that from the start of this month, the proportion of early childhood fees people can claim back under the flagship policy will increase from 25% to 40%.
That means a family paying $100 a week in fees will be now eligible for an additional $15 every week, she said.
The amount families can earn per year to be eligible will also be increased, from $180,000 per year to $229,000.
"IRD estimate around 16,000 more families will take it up at these different income levels," Willis said.
IRD would also continue work to see if a direct fee refund model is possible, Willis said.
A review of the early childhood funding system was under way "to ensure we are making things as simple, straight forward and effective as possible".
Ahead of the announcement, Willis said as amount of money in the scheme was not on track to all be used, there was an opportunity to spread it further.
She urged people who were eligible for Family Boost to put claims in.
"We note that only eligible families who make a claim will receive the rebate. To date, around 60,000 families have successfully claimed the FamilyBoost tax credit which is less than the number of families estimated to be eligible."
The Finance Minister promised to review the scheme which provides rebates for early childhood education, after government figures showed just 249 families had consistently claimed the full amount - well short of the 21,000 families initially estimated.
Previously, to qualify for the full amount, families had to be paying more than $300 a week in childcare costs, but also earning under $140,000 a year.
Families earning up to $180,000 a year could get smaller amounts, while those earning above that could not claim the rebate.
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