For decades child benefit was paid to all families with children the right age – often directly to the mother.

But six years ago the Government decided that should change – with well off families seeing their benefits stripped from them.

But the cut offs for what was considered "well off" have been frozen ever since – meaning each year more and more people are seeing benefits taken back by the taxman.

The result? In 2019-20, Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) calculates that 1.4 million, families with children will see benefits reduced – and a million of them will have lost all of their entitlement.

That’s significantly more people missing out on £1,079 a year for the first child and £714 for each subsequent one than when the scheme came first into force.

"The number of families with children who are affected will have risen by about 36%, or 370,000, in just six years," the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) calculates.

The child benefit rules

You generally qualify for child benefit you live in the UK and are responsible for a child under 16 (or under 20 if they stay in approved  education or training ).

You are normally seen as responsible if you live with the child or you are paying at least the same amount as Child Benefit (or the equivalent in kind) towards looking after them.

There are two rates:

• Eldest or only child – £20.70 a week
• Additional children £13.70 a week per child

But the moment either you or your partner makes more than £50,000 a year you need to start paying at least some of that benefit back – and it doesn’t matter if the child living with you is not your own child.

Once one of you is making £60,000, all of it needs to be paid back. You can use this calculator to work out how much you need to pay back .

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Financial support for parents

The problem with frozen thresholds

If thresholds are frozen, more people are sucked into losing the benefit as wages rise over time.

The IFS calculates that in its first full financial year of operation (2013-14), 13% of families with children, or around a million, lost at least some child benefit as a result of the policy, with around 700,000 losing all of it.

That has risen by a third in six years to 1.4 million (with a million losing all of their entitlement).

And by 2022 the IFS predicts in five families with children could be set to lose at least some of their child benefit.

Some 21% – or 1.6 million families with children – could lose benefit in 2022-23.

The think-tank said: "This is one of a growing list of examples of a part of the tax and benefit system being frozen, which never makes sense as an indefinite – and hence potentially permanent – policy".

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