working tax credits- help needed

mrswoga

Hi
I am in need of some help/ advice. My husband has recently changed his job and now works in a sales role with a basic salary + commission pay scale. When applying for working tax credits i am unsure what we need to declare as my husbands income, do we just need to declare his basic as anything over and above that is not guaranteed at all? I know that you are usually required to take the figure from your p60 but in his case this would differ possibly greatly from year to year. Can anybody shed any light on this for me as i dont want to make a claim and then end up owing moneys!!
Also, i have a possibility of taking voluntary redundancy and am confused as to how this may affect any entitlement we may have to any benefits/ tax credits.

Can anybody help me please???

cw18

with regards to income for your DH I think you have three choices

1. give them basic only as an estimate -- in which case you'll owe money back
2. guess at what he could make with as realistic a figure as you can, and hope you end the year close to that
3. phone TCO with regular updates, and they can adjust the payments each time

DH and I both used to get non-guaranteed bonuses and overtime (and out-of-hours standby in my case), so I always started the year with an average of the previous two or three years -- and if it looked like we were going to more than a couple of hundred quid out either way I'd phone and adjust


I'm sure they got sick of me phoning every couple of months, but I didn't want to end a year too far out

mrswoga

thanks for your help - ive been told so many different things both by tax credits themselves and others who claim them. i really need to be entitled to some form of this with redundancy looming and im really concerned about getting it wrong in any way. thanks again

[Deleted User]

When applying you only need to put the actual income for 2007/08 so at the moment you dont need to work out anything.

If the income for 2008/09 is going to be lower you need to work out how much it is going to be and give the income details to TCO so that they can increase your award (if low enough) once your claim has been processed.

When working out the estimate you should not jst give his basic earnings as he would undoubtedly earn more than that causing an overpayment.

Phoning up every month to change your income estimate isnt always too good either as every time you do this your award is recalculated and you never know how much your tax credits will be from month to month.

I would advise to work out his income including potential commission and slightly over estimate at the moment. That way you hopefully wont be overpaid and if you have been underpaid you will get it back at the end of the year when you declare your income.

If in fact he may earn more this year than last year you dont need to work out any current year income as long as the increase is not more than £25,000.

HTH

mrswoga

Sorry to be daft, but how does this £25,000 increase rule work? If he earns less than £25000 different to last year could i still end up owing moneys? Sorry if this is a stupid question but we have never claimed this before and im really in unknown territory (and afraid of doing wrong!!)

Also do you know if my taking voluntary redundancy may impact?

thanks!

[Deleted User]

If you earned £20,000 you can earn £45,000 without having your award reduced or causing an overpayment - but you ned to let TCO know about the change so that they can accurately recalculate your award from 6th April 2009.

It doesnt matter why you left the job - TCO dont care about this - they only need to know what the circumstances are/