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Child Benefit is for parents of ALL children under 16, and under-20s if in full-time education. It's worth £24 a week (£1,248/yr) for your first child and £15.90 a week (£827/yr) for each additional child. It counts towards the benefits cap, so for some, while you'd still get it, it can reduce other benefits.

1. Register for Child Benefit regardless of what you earn. Many don't bother registering if one parent/guardian earns over £60,000, as they'd just have to pay it all back. Yet that's often a bad idea. Even if you earn too much to gain from it, it's worth registering as:

- It triggers your eligibility for national insurance credits. The state pension is a non-means tested payment you get once you hit a certain age, currently 66. The amount received is dictated by the number of national insurance (NI) years you've built up. Most (not all) people need 35+ years to get the full state pension (see are you missing NI years?).

NI years are earned by being paid at least £123/week from employment. But if not, another way to get them is by caring for a child under 12. Yet it is the act of claiming Child Benefit that triggers this.

- It means your child will automatically get an NI number before they hit 16. If you don't claim Child Benefit, they'll need to apply for one manually when they turn 16, which takes several weeks.

- So register to claim Child Benefit, but opt out of getting it. If one of you does earn over £60,000, perhaps the easiest thing to do is claim the Child Benefit, but opt out of receiving the benefit. The link tells you how.

2. Are you one of 200,000 losing out due to the wrong partner claiming Child Benefit? HM Revenue & Customs say 200,000 parents are losing out as they're claiming Child Benefit in the wrong partner's name. Only ONE parent named on the Child Benefit application form can get the NI years (which you need to qualify for the full state pension).

Often it should be the lower-earning member of the couple who applies, as if you are earning, or ever earn, under £123/wk, you'll get an NI credit you wouldn't have otherwise, potentially boosting your future state pension, which can add up to £10,000s over the years.

You can fill in a form to transfer the credits over to the lower earner. It's sometimes even possible to backdate this, as David emailed...

"My wife has a low-paid job, so doesn't contribute to NI, leaving her state pension record with a 10-year gap. We'd been thinking about making voluntary contributions, then I read your Child Benefit article and realised as I'd been claiming it, I could transfer all the Child Benefit credits to my wife. She got 10 years' worth of free NI credits, which would have cost us approx £7,000. A huge weight off our minds. Thanks." And likely that'd boost her state pension by around £3,000/yr.

3. Highest earner on £50,000 to £60,000? You will still gain from Child Benefit. People often mention to me they're not claiming Child Benefit because they earn over £50,000. However, for every £100 you earn over £50,000, you only pay back 1% of your Child Benefit entitlement.

So that means at £55,000 you'd still be due over £1,000 a year if you've two children. It's only once your income hits £60,000 that you have to pay back the full amount. So if you earn in between, you'll still gain overall.

4. In work? If one of your family members looks after your children, they could also benefit. If you're registered for Child Benefit and a single parent (or couple, both) earning £123+/wk from employment, you'll be getting your NI years anyway. If so, you can transfer the unused Child Benefit NI credits to a relative if they're caring for your under-12-year-old child (eg, after school).

While technically it's called the Specified Adult Childcare Credit, I call it the grandparents' childcare credit, as that's the most common scenario, but it works for any family member aged 16 to 66. If multiple family members contribute, you can still only transfer it to one, so pick carefully. Claims can be backdated to 2011 (including for online care during the pandemic). As Karen emailed...

"I was nearly two years short on NI contributions and told I'd need to pay over £1,000 to make it up. After watching your programme about Specified Adult Childcare Credit, I filled in the form as I look after my grandchildren two days a week. I received confirmation this week that the years are now full and I don't need to pay anything to get my full state pension next June. Result! Thank you Martin."

5. You can avoid the higher income Child Benefit charge by boosting your pension contributions. The £50,000 to £60,000 threshold is based on your 'adjusted net income'. This is defined as your total taxable income less the likes of...

- Pension contributions
- Charitable donations under Gift Aid
- Trading losses (for the self-employed)
- Childcare vouchers (now closed to newbies, few have them)

Therefore, to reduce or remove the high-income charges, you can increase your pension contribution. Here's an example:

Polly Pension and her partner Paul Parent live together with their three under-16s. Polly is the highest earner at £52,000. As this is over the Child Benefit threshold, they'll have to pay 20% of their £2,902/yr Child Benefit (£580) as tax.

If Polly top ups her workplace pension by £2,000, it'll take her below the threshold, so they won't lose the £580 Child Benefit, and because her pension is taken by her employer from pre-tax income, her take-home pay is only reduced by £1,250. So in effect, she'll get an extra £2,000 in her pension (possibly more if her company matches her contributions) at a cost of £670.

The same logic applies to anyone whose pension contributions reduce their total earnings to below £60,000 - even if you still have a higher-income charge, increasing your pension may reduce it. All types of pension can be used to 'reduce' your income - see pension contributions.

6. If you face a high-income Child Benefit bill, it's YOUR responsibility to pay it via a self-assessment tax return. This can be a right pain in the bum for many with simple tax affairs, as you will have to fill in a self-assessment form (there should be a simplified form for Child Benefit, but there isn't sadly). For help, see how to pay.

7. Claimed Child Benefit for the first time BEFORE May 2000? Check if you're missing out on state pension. Since the 1978/79 financial year, those who aren't earning through paid work because they've instead taken time off work to look after their children (or to care for someone with a long-term medical condition) effectively get national insurance contributions.

Yet this 'home responsibilities protection' (HRP) wasn't implemented properly for 100,000s of people between 1978 and 2010 (see are you one of 200,000+ missing out on state pension?), when it was then replaced by national insurance credits.

This means many (mainly women) aged 41 to 90 who first claimed Child Benefit before May 2000 are receiving (or are due to receive) less state pension than they should. HM Revenue & Customs is writing to some affected people about it.

Janet emailed me in January: "Following your show, I applied for HRP as I stayed at home after having my children. I have received £15,000+ in backdated arrears, and my pension has increased by £44 a week thanks to you."