Tax credits: working 16 hours?

missk_ensington

Hi everyone,

This tax credits is confusing me more and more every day. I am a single parent doing a degree, but working 3 days a week.

I was working 14 hours, but when partner left I realised I was £100 a week better off if I did 16 hours, so I managed to increase my hours.

Anyway, I'm looking at changing jobs as I'm commuting over 600 miles a week to work and uni and I'm trying to reduce my Diesel costs. What is confusing me, how do they know you are working 16 hours a week and not 14, or 15 or 10? They only ask for your P60 which only bares your earnings not your hours, and what happens if I don't do my full 16 hours every week (I'm a temp and thus if I'm off ill/hospital/Bank Holiday I only get paid for what I do, which is sometimes 10, 12 hours or something)

Now I'm not suggesting I, or anyone should fraud the tax credits but merely curious as to what would happen if I (or anyone) left their job and didn;t notify them? You would think you would want to notify them if your earnings go down, because you'd think you'd get more tax credits but you don't! It goes from like £140 to £36 if you don't do your 16 hours.

At the end of the year the P60 would still come back okay for their purposes would it not?

Totally confused and worried I'll end up in trouble for the weeks I sometimes do less than 16 hours!

msmicawber

I worked 25 hours per week, but term-time only, and was worried that if it was averaged out over 52 weeks rather than 39, I'd be in trouble. I spoke to the tax credits people as well as mentioning it on my application and they told me that if I usually worked 25 hours, then that was good enough. I hope that helps. It might be worth looking at their web site to set your mind at rest.

PabloNeruda

hi missk

I am also a single parent of two and doing a degree at University of London. I am also contracted to do a minimum of 16 hours a week, although I get lots of extra shifts. It is ideal because I can pick and choose any additional shifts, whenever they are offered, to suit me and I can work around my lectures and study time (plus work a lot more during the holidays - and we know students get a LOT of that!)

Anyway, I digress, I also claimed Tax Credits and I promise you it's the worst thing I have EVER done and I wish I had never touched it with the world's longest barge pole. My problem is that my income every month from my job can be so different - anything from £430 to around £1100, depending on how many additional shifts I chose to do. My award is CONSTANTLY being readjusted and so far in the last year I would say it has been amended about 15 times. Every time I ring up with a query I go through the same old thing with them, discussing figures etc, and then a new award drops through the letterbox a couple of days later. The upshot of it all is that at the moment I owe them somehing just short of £2000. And you can't just tell them you don't want anything any more, or you have to pay the entire amount back in full. It's a nightmare.

missk_ensington

So if there was, say 4-5 weeks gap in between leaving this job and starting the other and I don;t say anything would that be fraudulent or not because I would still be doing 16 hours the majority of the year?

CIS

Tax credits stop after finishing work, unless that gap is 6 days or less

A person shall be treated as being engaged in qualifying remunerative work for the requisite number of hours provided they were so engaged within the past 7 days.

This provides for people who have short gaps between jobs to continue to be treated as in remunerative work provided the gap does not exceed 6 days.

msmicawber

I believe it would be if you're talking about changing jobs - I don't change jobs, I just have a contract that gives me all the school holidays off. If you look at the WFTC and CC forms, they don't specifically mention notifying them of a change of employer, but simply state 'if any of your circumstances change' you must notify them, so I tend to err on the cautious side and tell them about anything.

Although changes throughout the tax year don't make much difference at the time to the amount you receive, it can make a difference to the amount you receive the following year, as they base their adjudications on your previous year's income. That's where a lot of overpayments come from.

missk_ensington

I'll take my chances and not mention that I'm out of work for a few weeks. I can't manage on the £40 a week they give me for CTC, and I'm not bothering to claim IS for 4 weeks. What difference does it make, my annual earnings are still going to be the same, if not a little lower than I've estimated for year.

Don't see how it is any different than still being in my job, but on holiday for 4 weeks but not getting paid for it.

I'm struggling to see though what is stopping anyone working, say 10 hours a week for £10 an hour but telling Tax Cred you work 16 hours a week for £6 an hour. Your P60 will still be the same, and you'll get the Working Tax Credits.

Can anyone correct me here?

msmicawber

Fear of prosecution for fraud, in my case.

They used to contact your employer when it was paid via your wages, and I don't know whether they still do. There are notices on everything these days saying that all benefit agencies have the right to pass information to eachother. Also, I notice from a couple of other threads that they do spot checks.

CIS

I'm struggling to see though what is stopping anyone working, say 10 hours a week for £10 an hour but telling Tax Cred you work 16 hours a week for £6 an hour. Your P60 will still be the same, and you'll get the Working Tax Credits.

They couldn't

missk_ensington

CIS - why couldn't they? I'm not arguing this matter, I'm just genuinely curious and confused.


mismicawber- Yeah the DCI system related all benefits, but so what? If someone was earning £10 hour/working 10 hours...claiming 16... DCI wouldn't show anything up because that person wouldn't be doing anything wrong in terms of benefits, as they would only be claiming tax credits and not HB/IS/IB or antyhing.

If you got a spot check, you would make sure you started working the proper amount so yyou had a couple of wahe slips to show (I get paid weekly, so in a couple of weeks of knowing officer was coming you could make sure you have a few legit pay slips? No?)

CIS

Sorry, I wasn't reading properly - I thought you meant could the TCO see from the figures you gave them how many hrs you worked.