US Additional Child Tax Credits and HMRC

Hi All,

I feel like I've read this discussion here before, but I can't for the life of me find it, anyway...

This past weekend I had a mild panic attack when I decided that I should have been reporting the additional child tax credit I receive from the IRS every year for my children to HMRC as part of my worldwide income.

On Monday I spoke with two UK accountants that say they have many US clients that they look after and have never reported this to HRMC as part of a self-assessment. Their argument being that it's not income, it's a tax refund, which HRMC doesn't consider taxable. I like this thought process, but I would also think that the accountants might do a lot of work with US clients living in the UK, but I wonder if many of the clients actually receive the additional child tax credit.

Anyway, I was just wondering how others treat this money? Do you report it to HMRC as part of your worldwide income on a self-assessment form, or do you not bother?

All thoughts appreciated!

You're a step ahead of me - I haven't managed to even figure out how to claim the Additional Child Tax Credit from the IRS because whenever I go through the guidance, it adds it on and then I have to subtract it off Form 1040 again. So I'm not best placed to answer you, although I guess ultimately it depends on the specifics of the tax treaty between the two countries. I can only see this rather non-specific info. from a quick search: https://www.gov.uk/tax-foreign-income

Do yourself a favor and but TurboTax! If you don't have an US credit cards so Intuit won't take your money, you can buy it for download from Amazon.com (not .co.uk), and I'll bet Amazon will take your credit card, foreign or not!

Do yourself a favor and but TurboTax! If you don't have an US credit cards so Intuit won't take your money, you can buy it for download from Amazon.com (not .co.uk), and I'll bet Amazon will take your credit card, foreign or not!

Even on Amazon.com you need a US credit card with US address to buy TurboTax I believe. I have to do this each year, unless they changed their policy this last year.