Tax Credits - Will I Still Qualify If I Finish My Job?

mitchaa

You may also qualify for council tax benefit and school dinners for your children.I suppose the big thing here is that you are mortgage/rent free to which will enable you to do this.

£28k gross is £21k net.

Your partner will earn £6000, benefits you say will be £170pw, I assume this is child tax credits and working tax credits? That equates to £8840 so all in £14.4k income.

That means you're short by around £6.6k, not the £12k as you have worked out.

I wouldn't count the child benefit as you will be claiming that just now whilst earning £28k so doesn't make any difference to the figures. You'll still be short of £550 every month. (£6.6k/12)

Are you able to afford that drop in income?

barberbookie

Good advice from Caz and Oldernotwiser. Thankyou. Caz your assesment is spot on and will base all my calculations on what you have said. Asking for a career break is an option which i could look into , depends how much they valued you i suppose. I agree also , finding work is hard to come by. I have worked in IT and around computers for most of my career and have made some good contacts. I suppose it is a risk you take , but i would hope i would stand a good chance of gaining further employment.

Thanks for all your advice.

clairec79

Don't forget unless you change over at the change of the tax year your this year income will be based on what you have earned so far plus what she will earn for the rest of the year - say for example you switched roles in September you'd received tax credits based on £17,000 (6 months your pay, 6 months hers)

Oldernotwiser

barberbookie wrote: »

Good advice from Caz and Oldernotwiser. Thankyou. Caz your assesment is spot on and will base all my calculations on what you have said. Asking for a career break is an option which i could look into , depends how much they valued you i suppose. I agree also , finding work is hard to come by. I have worked in IT and around computers for most of my career and have made some good contacts. I suppose it is a risk you take , but i would hope i would stand a good chance of gaining further employment.

Thanks for all your advice.

Some companies have a career break as policy for everybody; I used to work for VT and that was certainly the case with them.

If you're in IT, I'd certainly look at ways of keeping your skills up to date as a year can see many changes. If you have the qualifications for it, you could look at doing some part time IT teaching at college level and, if you don't, you could look at studying something whilst you're off work.

Although it's great that you want to spend more time with your children, they will be away from home for about 30/35 hours per week and, even allowing for doing all the housework etc. , this should allow you plenty of time for study or part time work of some kind, whether paid or voluntary.

barberbookie

Very sound advice Oldernotwiser. If i do go ahead with these changes i would certainly consider a studying course from home , or at nightschool. I will keep you posted with what develops. I will also contact the tax credits office directly to see were i stand

barberbookie

Just noticed Mitchaas post ( 1.29 pm ). thanks for clearing up the figures difference. I was working on gross and not net. Thanks for your advice

welshmoneylover

Please be careful taking a career break.

You might not find it so easy to stroll back into a position of earning £28k+ pa.

Don't forget when kids are grown up you will lose cb, ctc and wtc which in itself is a huge amount to be down by.

You could find yourself in poverty/struggling in your 40s and 50s which I'm sure is a position no one wants to be in.

ThriftyFelicity

welshmoneylover wrote: »

Please be careful taking a career break.

You might not find it so easy to stroll back into a position of earning £28k+ pa.

This is an excellent point. It is an awful lot more difficult getting a job when you currently aren't working, than switching employers when you currently are working. Is there the possibility of cutting your hours to part-time, perhaps working only when your children are at school, instead of quitting outright?

Also don't forget that in one year's time, competition for jobs will be a lot stiffer because of all the public sector layoffs coming.

There are also said to be changes coming to WTC. Whilst your proposed situation may currently enable you to claim substantial WTC, this could change in future... for example by requiring both spouses to work a minimum of 16 hours each (instead of just one spouse), before being eligible for any government funds.