Current Year Assessments

triplea35

I am completing a Current Year Assessment Form as our family income is significantly reduced (halved) from the 2008/2009 financial year. Our combined definite income for 2010/2011 will be around £25,200.
I am currently undergoing training and when/if I qualify later this year and become self employed I will almost certainly make a loss in the first few years of trading.
Therefore should I consider putting a minus figure for expected earnings from self employment or deduct it from definite income(pension).
Also as my wife has no job pension so for the last few years we have put money in a SIPP. Would theses contributions be classed as private pension and are they deducted from our total income income calculations by student finance.
As we currently are just over £25K I am hoping to have the figure genuinely reduced by a couple of hundred pounds so that my son will qualify for full maintenance grant and a larger bursary from his university.
Any advice appreciated

Kess

I'm in a similar position, having just lost my job. I'm afraid I can't help with your specific query but was wondering if anyone here has any experience of using Current Year Income (CYI) Assessment Forms from previous years. I'm especially uncertain about how optimistic or pessimistic to be with the earnings figures I submit for this year.

The CYI form makes clear that I will have to provide evidence of earnings at the end of the year and, if it turns out I earn more than predicted, then they will claw back some of the student finance. However it's less clear what happens if I earn less than predicted - would they increase the grant retrospectively?

Also if I manage to get another good job then my actual income might end up well above predictions and make pessimistic CYI figures look suspicious. Is it possible to get into trouble if your CYI figures turn out to be wildly wrong?

Any advice would be appreciated.

oldie21

my experience this year is that yet again they have "lost" the current year forms I sent in (proof of posting)

I sent them in the same envelope as a replacement form for the 2008-2009 income form that they had lost earlier!!!!!!!!!!! They have managed to process that but the current year forms have gone missing

I am disgusted with the service this year, so far they have lost 3 forms containing our confidential financial information. Now I have resent them recorded delivery although that doesn't guarantee their successful arrival.

and it takes 7-8 weeks to find out they have lost them!:mad:

johnswife

we filled in these forms last year for my daughter, we both left our jobs and my husband started a new business. We estimated we would earn no more than £25k. Our accountant has been doing the figures for our 1st year of trading and working out our P60.

This year we also have a second daughter starting Uni so filled out the forms again but they have not asked for any proof of what we have earned.

My daughters have both received details of their loans & grants through.

We know that if we have under estimated our income that we will have to repay monies but we are trying to keep under the £25k.

oldie21

from bitter experience this year I have found that if you send things recorded delivery, not too many in one envelope they stand more chance of being processed and far quicker

see posting above, my daughter has finally been offered the full grant based on our current years assessments, although we had to send several forms twice before this happened. I am very concerned where our missing personal information has gone and I will be filing a formal complaint with them and with our MP

for now I am just trying to de-stress from the whole thing.........:)