PolicyEngine / PolicyEngine/policyengine-uk
Update 2026-27 Child Benefit rates
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- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 50
- Forks
- 33
- Avg merge
- 20h 58m
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 14
Description
PolicyEngine UK currently appears to use forecast-indexed 2026 Child Benefit weekly rates instead of the published 2026-27 rates.
Repro with policyengine[uk]==4.11.0 (policyengine-uk@2.88.20):
from policyengine.tax_benefit_models.uk import uk_latest
for name in [
"gov.hmrc.child_benefit.amount.eldest",
"gov.hmrc.child_benefit.amount.additional",
]:
for value in uk_latest.get_parameter(name).parameter_values:
if value.start_date.year == 2026:
print(name, value.value, value.start_date, value.end_date)
Actual 2026 values:
gov.hmrc.child_benefit.amount.eldest:26.935709699992934gov.hmrc.child_benefit.amount.additional:17.836506423219888
Published 2026-27 weekly rates are:
- Eldest or only child:
27.05 - Additional children:
17.90
Sources:
- GOV.UK rates and allowances table: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances-tax-credits-child-benefit-and-guardians-allowance/tax-credits-child-benefit-and-guardians-allowance
- GOV.UK Child Benefit page: https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit/what-youll-get/
- SI 2026/232 PDF says the enhanced rate increases from £26.05 to £27.05 and the other rate from £17.25 to £17.90: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/232/pdfs/uksi_20260232_en.pdf
This surfaced while comparing Axiom RuleSpec UK against PolicyEngine over local Enhanced FRS. Positive child-benefit rows return annual respective amounts that imply weekly rates of about 26.9357 and 17.8365, while the generated RuleSpec from the 2026 instrument returns 27.05 and 17.90.
Expected: update the Child Benefit amount parameters for 2026-27, with the correct effective date semantics for the UK tax year / benefit week.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Search the UK parameter catalog for gov.hmrc.child_benefit.amount.eldest and gov.hmrc.child_benefit.amount.additional, then run the reproduction snippet from the issue. Check the 2026-27 effective dates against the linked GOV.UK sources and confirm that the reported weekly values and UK tax-year or benefit-week semantics are correct.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- backend
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 68/100