A complete Mess

radaas

CIS wrote:

I would be very careful with you claim - unless the details have changed, you posted earlier saying that you have a child but are seperated, in at least one post , you caller her your ex.

It tends to be one of those, you never know if we are a couple or not, depends on her mood.

last year we lived seperately as it was more then evident the year before that it was doing us no good together. we dont have many arguments, but when we do and i dont feel like backing down it gets into a very loud conversation (think the neighbours calling the police was a reality check)
This past year went well she had her place i had mine, however financially we were crippled by jan (the previous year i had a healthy balance to support the £700 a month rent, but i started last year my overdraft).
I ended up moving in with her cause i could no longer sort myself out and her.

Things have been good since then, but lot of people think we are not an item and others thing we are, its very confusing.
I dont even know half the time if when i see her next shes gonna ignore me/b**chslap me or it will be all kissing iand cuddles.

Its crazy i tell you, but whatever happens my son always comes first ad more then sure that goes for both of us.

(hell im gonna take on 3k of her debt onto a cc bt)

lil'H

With regard to being a couple or not, in terms of tax credits, benefits etc, i believe that if you are living seperately you are termed as single. For example me as a single parent I can have a boyfriend or even fiancee (though chance would be a fine thing!) without it effecting my finances at all as i would technically be single, however the second he moved in I would no longer be classed as single and from that point onwards my finances would be effected. So whilst it isn't very helpful to your personal life not knowing half the time whether your together or not, financially I believe you are both classed as single. However someone else feel free to correct me on that one!

lil'H

radaas

Used the entitledto website and tested 2 examples

If childcare stays constant at £132 p/w

1)
If i was classed as a couple
I earn 16k
WTC 5495.70

2)
just his mother
no income
just CTC

3)
just me and my lil one
earn 16K
WTC 4813.15

CTC stays contant at 2314.10

The strange thing is that last time i had applied fot WTC when i was on 15.5k 2 years ago only picket up £20 a week from WTC and its now about £94-105 a week just WTC. which is crazy, unless some major upheavel occured with the WTC since its first yer of incetion.

Also if classed as a couple the entitled to website says that it asssumes that we both work min 16 hours a week but his mum dont work as she is a full time student and i work the 37.5 hours so does that get divided by the 2 of us so 18.75 hours each?? - that is of course if i change it and say that we are a couple cause as it stands i am a lone parent (though i did explain to them the whole situation that i was not really a lone parent we just split time up between us and at this pointin time i look after him more)

Scarlett1

radaas wrote:

Used the entitledto website and tested 2 examples

If childcare stays constant at £132 p/w

1)
If i was classed as a couple
I earn 16k
WTC 5495.70

2)
just his mother
no income
just CTC

3)
just me and my lil one
earn 16K
WTC 4813.15

CTC stays contant at 2314.10

The strange thing is that last time i had applied fot WTC when i was on 15.5k 2 years ago only picket up £20 a week from WTC and its now about £94-105 a week just WTC. which is crazy, unless some major upheavel occured with the WTC since its first yer of incetion.

Also if classed as a couple the entitled to website says that it asssumes that we both work min 16 hours a week but his mum dont work as she is a full time student and i work the 37.5 hours so does that get divided by the 2 of us so 18.75 hours each?? - that is of course if i change it and say that we are a couple cause as it stands i am a lone parent (though i did explain to them the whole situation that i was not really a lone parent we just split time up between us and at this pointin time i look after him more)

radaas you need to sit down with you're girlfriend or ex and decide between you both if you are going to be a couple or not and then decide who is going to be the parent with care, and then move on and claim tax credits from there.

Call me a cynic but it seems to me that you are both very much a couple but living seperately to be able to claim maximum benefits as single parents

radaas

no doubt i would try and be creative about my circumstances when it comes to things
like this, however within the confines of this site i have been truely and completely
honest as best i can.

and the point about being single to claim maximum benefits doesnt hold much water as it can
be seen that if we classed ourselves as a couple the CTC stays the same and the WTC
actually gets to its highest when we are a couple.

We dont double claim anything, but then al we get in the form of benefits is child benefit
(not touched straight into his account), milk tokens, CTC about £40 a week), and that
£200 child trust fund. 2 of the years we have claimed from uni the Access to learning fund.

Nothing else
No HB
Even when i was not earning an income i never claimed any benefits
Nothing else

this is the first income we have had in 2 years, we have never asked for money off our
parents or any one else.

Only income has been our student loans (during xmas/summer we live we our folks so no
rent/food costs - but there are other costs)

We have lived on our student loans, our credit cards and our overdrafts
(ebay and icelands "buy peas and get everything else free" also helped)

bonnie_2

working tax credit is for people who are working, if you don't have a job, you can't claim it.
Also a couple is classed as living together, not living together, not a couple.
But then if you want to get done for fraud it is up to you.

radaas

What the hell are you on, please if your going to comment please read the thread properly.
I am working and like i said before common sense would show that we are sort of in effect a couple, but the tax forms seems to fail to look at the grey area, it is black and white clear cut.

bonnie_2

No i don't have a job so need money benifits. your words not mine.
If your not living together you are not are couple in the eyes of the law and as you will be claiming at one address and her at another you will be found out. i am not getting at you, but you dont seem to understand the term couple.

radaas

whoops sorry guess i jumped the gun there.

I have no idea what that line was about , cant think what i couldve been trying to write?
must have got stopped mid sentance or something, proof reading has always been my downfall.

Just to clarify I do have a job, I temp my salary as you will know from temping is never fixed. since starting i received £9 p/h for 2 weeks (only 4 days a week) then i got £8 an hour the following eek (only got to work 20 hours) then didnt have a job for a week, then got a job for £8 an hour for the past 3 weeks to continue for another 3 weeks, however if i stay the full cousres will get a further £1 an hour for all the time there, then i plann to take 2 weeks off to get my litlle one sorted as they will be moving to a new place (he's had 2 familys fuss over him for the past 2 months and would be such a shock to him to suddnely be in a new place with just his mum)


My next problem is with the way in calculating my salary on the last 7 weeks i have earned about £1500 (but is less due to calculation of holiday pay for temps)
so if you divide 1500/(7weeksX37.5hrs a week)= £11,143
which i really dont feel is right so have optimistically upped it to 16K (but then again i dont know if the temping agency will always find me a job. i could claim that i earn 11k based on this historic data and that would be mathematically right and is backed up legally, but i dont want to fall into the trap of paying back anything for over payments so will gladly take less to stop this problem and either case i we win as i either only take home 11k but get the tax credits at the end of the year to make up on my conservative figure or earn hopefully that amount and have no worry with repayments and be better off, as it is hard earnt money

radaas

ahhh just re read my post properly if iused proper grammar it would be better understood
this was meant to mean

No i dont have a job so need money benefits

it was under items that i dont claim so a person who says "they dont have a job" and need money beneifts in the from of IB and jobseekers etc etc (im not too sure how many there is so this was usedd to say that in effect when i was not working I never claimed any financial assisstance of any kind from the government etc.