The Department of Education, Skills and Employment have advised that families who have been receiving the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) (prior to this current period where there is no out of pocket fees payable by parents…) need to confirm their income by the end of this month for their CCS to continue. 

There has been some confusion among families about which financial year this requirement relates to.

Please note that the requirement does not relate to this current financial year (July 2019 – June 2020), which is not yet over.

Just to clarify the requirement, families who have received the CCS in the 2018-2019 financial year (that is, for the period between July 2018 – June 2019, which finished at the end of June of last year), are required to confirm their income for that financial year (2018 – 2019), by 30 June 2020.

They can do this by:

• lodging their Tax Returns with the Australian Tax Office; OR
   
• completing an ‘Advise non-lodgement of tax return’ with Centrelink, if they don’t need to lodge a tax return.

If families don’t do this by the end of this month, their CCS will stop from 13 July 2020 (the start of the next CCS year).

CCS will not start again until families have confirmed their income, and there will be no back pay for the period between when it stops and when income is confirmed.

While we are still waiting on the Federal Government announcement about any updates on the current Early Years Relief Program in place during COVID-19, it’s important that families still have access to any eligible benefits once the usual CCS begins once more.