He added: “One way to save your family money if your income is near those thresholds is to pay more into your pension. This reduces your taxable income and therefore can reduce how much child benefit you have to pay back, while also building up a tax-efficient pot for retirement.”
Paul Stocks, financial planner at Continuum, agreed "a number of people earning between £50,000 and £60,000 who have children may well not be aware of higher tax rates in this band".
The charge puts people in a difficult position as not claiming could mean people miss out on National Insurance credits that count towards state pension entitlement.
Louise Higham, chartered financial planner at Tilney, Smith & Williamson, has previously said the sensible option for most people was to "register for child benefit but opt to not receive it.
"So you don’t have to pay the tax charge but still accumulate NI credits."
The charge could also be avoided by using salary sacrifice to take gross earnings below the £50,000 threshold.
carmen.reichman@ft.com
