CTC / Nursery fees query?

Lola28

Hello,

My partner and I do not recieve WTC however we currently get £65 weekly CTC. Our son is starting nursery next week, which will cost us £400 monthly. I understand that it is possible to recieve help towards this from tax credits, but I am confused as to whether this will be a seperate payment or absorbed with the CTC we already get? To be honest if we don't get a considerable contribution towards the childcare it may be worthwhile one of us giving up work (we earn the same amount, just literally pounds over the £18000 cut off for WTC) which neither of us want to do.

The CTC payments have only been in place for 2 weeks and are a godsend, but if the nursery cost contribution is just counted as the current payment then we're going to have major problems...

All help gratefully recieved!
x

MummyOfTwo

def ring and tell them!!! have your nursery ofsted number to hand too.

Emmamumof2

They make all payments for CTC, WTFC and childcare as one payment, so if you have told them about your childcare and your income etc for this year and this is the payment you've received in light of that information that is the amount you are due. If you havent yet told them about the childcare you should! At the beginning of last year we went from earning joint £36K to just £19K as hubby made redundant, so we got help with childcare. Initially they had childcare down, incorrectly, as £140 pw and based upon that income of £19K, having 2 kids, one of which in nursery with costs of £140pw we got £600 pm CTC and childcare - when they got correct childcare down £65 pw and income increased Sept-ish to £30K we got £160 pm, so if your income is just over £18K and nursery is £400 pm you would be nearer the amount we got to start with (which we now owe an overpayment for by the way so be careful to keep your income etc up to date!). If in doubt ring them and make sure they have up to date info -good luck!
Our income has gone back up now thank goodness so we would be eligble only for the £545 pa CTC so not claimed this year in light of the probable changes due next week! I had quite a trouble getting them to get the info right and caused a great deal of worry at the time!

Lola28

Thank you for your response!

We're going into the nursery on Monday to pay the deposit/first weeks fee in advance, and the lady won't give us that information until we do as she said some people have used it to make a claim then never turned up...but I will be calling them as soon as I can. So do you think we'll get extra help above the CTC then?
x

Emmamumof2

If you earn just over £18K then yes I do, from personal experience only, you can ring TCO a soon as your child starts nursery, not before, given them all details inc the registration number of your nursery and the average weekly amount and they will re-calc your award!

missdee85

Also may be worth you checking if either you or your husbands workplace offer childcare vouchers a few major companies i have worked for do them and apparently they are a god send. They take lets just for this case say £200 off your wages each month or however often your paid then this amount gets doubled to £400 in vouchers which apparently a lot of nurseries accept them.

Good luck xx