Returning to work - working tax credit & disability help please

AJ427

Hi all,

I have a long term illness/disability for which I receive disability living allowance indefinately:
Middle Rate Care Component £47.10/week
Lower Rate Mobility Component £18.65/week

I also get incapacity benefit as follows:
Incapacity Basic Rate £89.80/week
Incapacity Age Addition £15.65/week

I've returned to work in the last two weeks within the permitted work guidelines after a break of 5 years. This means that I can work up to 16 hours per week and earn £92.00. I am paid minimum wage and am working up to 16 hours. However, my employer wants to increase my hours to around 20 hours/week which means that I'll no longer be able to claim the incapacity benefit and would therefore be worse off unless I am able to claim working tax credit.

My husband is in full time employment and earns around £25K. We have no children. I've been on the HMRC site and this would seem to indicate that we (I) are not entitled to any working tax credit. However, after telephoning HMRC I have been told that I would be entitled to claim the disabled element of the working tax credit (£2530?) but couldn't give further details.

Can anybody tell me if I would definately get the tax credit as it all seemed very vague and also is my husband's income taken into account with the disabled element?

I've also noticed that there is a return to work credit of £40/week available for people returning to work over 16 hours from incapacity benefit - would I qualify for this as I've already started at less than 16 hours?

Any help appreciated.

AJ