Income Support and savings/allowances help please

ktprt

I am claiming Income Support as a single parent. Could anyone tell me if it is true that if my teenage son has over £3,000 in capital then I will not get any personal allowance for him at all?

I find it hard to believe that £56 a week (personal allowance) will be taken away because of this, particularly with adults threshold of £6,000 where £1 is taken away for every further £250.

Would really appreciate anyone with knowledge telling me if I am right or wrong about this, and what the rules about dependent children's allowances/savings are.

tazwhoever

I remember reading this on some website, dependant's saving over £3K would mean no income support for your child. Maybe someone with more info can give a better answer.

annies_mum

hi, i am sure someone will be along to advise you better than i can, but there isn't a personal allowance for children anymore. you will have to claim child tax credits now.

ktprt

Problem is I have been on IS for a while and had absolutely no idea that child's savings needed to be declared. I am worried that if I tell them now I will have to pay back huge amounts of money.

bigbill

Stop the child additions in your Income Support and claim child tax credits instead for the children, exactly the same money just no capital limit involved.

karenx

How old is your son? You may be having to come off IS soon and go onto JSA

ktprt

Thanks big bill and everyone else for your suggestions. I can't begin to tell you how confused I am by all of this. This is a new form asking many more questions than before. Previously I was never asked about child savings etc. and I didn't realise they were relevant. I am so worried that if I tell them what he has (which is just over £3,000 (by approx £300) then they will tell me I owe them all the past child benefits I got.
I am wondering whether to get him to quickly withdraw the excess to take it below £3000 so that I can then say he has less than that - he will have no problem spending it!!
I feel so dirty even thinking like this, but it has been an honest mistake and although obviously he is lucky to have that money when so many have much less, it seems very hard to be penalised for trying to have something towards his future. But I don't want to get into even more trouble. I am very conflicted about being 100% honest and causing myself financial hardship (with back repayments I will have trouble managing) for the sake of a few hundred extra pounds which I really wish I hadn't encouraged him to save.
If he spends the extra now before I fill in the form, do you think this will be a problem?

DaisyFlower

Spending savings in order to qualify for means tested benefits is usually seen as deprevation of capital and you will be deemed as having it anyway.

Karenx is right though, if your son has that amount of savings then he is likely to be of the age where you will have to swap to JSA rather than IS anyway.

seven-day-weekend

The OP's son is a teenager, she says so in the first post.

So unless she has a disabilty or younger children, she will have to go onto Jobseekers' Allowance.