Thank you - together we have saved Childcare Vouchers

GREAT NEWS!

As you may have seen, news broke late yesterday afternoon that the government has decided to retain the tax relief for childcare vouchers, limiting it to the basic rate of tax for all users. This will apply from April 2011.

The news was confirmed to us by the senior policy advisers we were dealing with at No 10, and was outlined in a letter to the joint chairs of the Parliamentary Labour Party Women's Committee, who have been the focal point for our campaigning work.   

We are particularly pleased that the government listened to our concerns about limiting the tax relief to only basic rate tax payers - a policy which we made clear would be very difficult to implement and would be unfair to employees on the cusp of paying higher rate tax, and following our briefings has decided to allow all users to continue to use the scheme whilst limiting to only the basic rate element of tax.  We understand that The Treasury will be issuing a consultation to seek views on implementing these changes in due course.

On behalf of Sodexo I would like to thank all our parents, carers and clients for your support of the Save Childcare Vouchers campaign.  Your efforts in promoting this campaign contributed to a number 10 petition which exceeded 92000 signatures, an enormous amount of continuing media interest, and directly led to a supporting campaign from with the labour party, led by Patricia Hewitt and supported by 88 Labour MPs. 

This level of support has undoubtedly been the deciding factor on Gordon Brown’s withdrawal of the proposal – we couldn’t have done it without you - THANK YOU.