Tax Credit calculator wrong?

alicia_kh

I've used the Tax credits calculator on both the entiteldto website and on the hmrc website - both of which gave me the same amount of tax credits for the year 2011/2012 - roughly about £108 a week for child tax credit.

When I got my payment last week, it was quite a bit less. After calling the 'helpline' I finally got through after about 2 hours of trying, and they said that the calculator is wrong - on all the websites. Has anyone else encountered this?

Pretty shocking if you ask me! The increase in Tax credits for low income families - ie; me, works out at around £13 a year, rather than the substantially larger amount advertised on all the government websites.

Just wondered if this has happened to anyone else?

welshmoneylover

alicia_kh wrote: »

I've used the Tax credits calculator on both the entiteldto website and on the hmrc website - both of which gave me the same amount of tax credits for the year 2011/2012 - roughly about £108 a week for child tax credit.

When I got my payment last week, it was quite a bit less. After calling the 'helpline' I finally got through after about 2 hours of trying, and they said that the calculator is wrong - on all the websites. Has anyone else encountered this?

Pretty shocking if you ask me! The increase in Tax credits for low income families - ie; me, works out at around £13 a year, rather than the substantially larger amount advertised on all the government websites.

Just wondered if this has happened to anyone else?

If you read through a few posts on this board about tax credits, it seems a lot of people's payments are a big haywire at the moment.

alicia_kh

Yeah, have been reading through a lot of the posts - sound like a bit of a mess! Just thought I would point out that some calculations might be wrong online. The lady I spoke to said that they had been getting a few calls stating the same as me - and that they were trying to fix it. Also the chart on the HMRC website about income and tax credit levels is wrong as well -according to the Tax Credit people.

flight747

No! wrong, Tax Credit are in the wrong, not all of us. They liars! They try to get away with £1748 a year cut out of us all. I had contract CBA and they say the latest of the government for child tax credit for one child for lone parent live alone with no job should be £59 a week. £3100 a year. Tax credit just flob us all off. Don't accept it, take them to court.

DX2

flight747 wrote: »

No! wrong, Tax Credit are in the wrong, not all of us. They liars! They try to get away with £1748 a year cut out of us all. I had contract CBA and they say the latest of the government for child tax credit for one child for lone parent live alone with no job should be £59 a week. £3100 a year. Tax credit just flob us all off. Don't accept it, take them to court.

Did you actually read the post?

zagfles

alicia_kh wrote: »

I've used the Tax credits calculator on both the entiteldto website and on the hmrc website - both of which gave me the same amount of tax credits for the year 2011/2012 - roughly about £108 a week for child tax credit.

When I got my payment last week, it was quite a bit less. After calling the 'helpline' I finally got through after about 2 hours of trying, and they said that the calculator is wrong - on all the websites. Has anyone else encountered this?

Pretty shocking if you ask me! The increase in Tax credits for low income families - ie; me, works out at around £13 a year, rather than the substantially larger amount advertised on all the government websites.

Just wondered if this has happened to anyone else?

The calculators are unlikely to be wrong. You might have to wait till the renewal to get the increased award - but in the meantime you can work it out the hard way and compare http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/taxcredits.htm

moomoomama27

zagfles wrote: »

The calculators are unlikely to be wrong. You might have to wait till the renewal to get the increased award - but in the meantime you can work it out the hard way and compare http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/taxcredits.htm

I agree, I've always found the calculatirs to be right. Infact the one on entitledto, and the one on the tax credits website say the same amount, and when calculating it through the elements and deducting for income, it comes to the same amount.

The trouble is, the payments after 05/04/11 are provisional based on your income that was submitted in the previous tax yr, so if you are submitting different figures t the ones you gave previously it will differ from the payments.

zagfles

moomoomama27 wrote: »

I agree, I've always found the calculatirs to be right. Infact the one on entitledto, and the one on the tax credits website say the same amount, and when calculating it through the elements and deducting for income, it comes to the same amount.

The trouble is, the payments after 05/04/11 are provisional based on your income that was submitted in the previous tax yr, so if you are submitting different figures t the ones you gave previously it will differ from the payments.

Also, in past years you never got any increases in the elements of tax credits until the renewal was processed. Not sure what they're doing this year as they seem to have made some attempt to adjust run-on payments...but maybe not for everybody.

alicia_kh

It turns out, after a number of follow up calls, that the calculators are in fact correct. They calculated my TC based on last years rates - and I won't get my new higher rate until I've sent my renewal forms back. They were pretty insistent on the phone that I was in the wrong, and that the calculators were wrong as well - my advice is ask them how they have worked out your rates, you may find that they have used last years rates. Apparently they have had loads of problems with the new computer system crashing, so have been pretty much guessing the whole thing!