Can anyone help me please with tax credits?

Pinchy

At the moment I am on maternity leave. I am now a lone parent to a small baby. My company police on leave is 26 weeks on full pay then 13 on smp. This means that from april i have a drop in income. A lone parent advisor has suggested that I ring them in May and give them my estimated income for the year 11/12 of £8000 working 20 hours. Can someone please give me an idea what the tax credit figure would be per week please based on her advice?

Really worrying how im gonna get by or whether i need to go back to work before I'm really ready

Thanks

allen35

It can be very complex, when estimating 11/12 income the first £100 of your SMP will be disregarded so keep this in mind when estimating/declaring.

Here is a post to a tax credit query i did yesterday, hope it helps

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcreditsbudget2010/index.htm#3

The amount of help you can get for childcare costs

The amount of help you can get with your childcare costs drops from 80 per cent to 70 per cent from 6 April 2011. The most you can claim for each week is £175 for one child and £300 for two or more children.
This means that the maximum help you can get through tax credits for your childcare will be:

• £122.50 a week for one child
• £210 a week for two or more children

This change may reduce your tax credits payments.

And here are the new rates which show excess above the first income threshold will be deducted from 39% to 41% of the excess, clink on the link it gives some examples

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/taxcredits.htm

Pinchy

Thanks but its all gobble de gook to me the £8000 is taking into account the first £100 of the maternity pay. I really dont know what to do

bargain_hunter_1964

Hi,

Based on income of £8000 with working 20 hrs per week and 1 child, then the calculation would be Child tax credits of £59.62 per week and working tac credit of £61.97 per week. This has been done using Quickcalc a benefit tool on new rates for 2010/11 and assumes that 8000 is correct income and also that you and child do not have any disabilities.
Hope that this helps.