New rules for working tax???

meemo38

Anyone else got a letter to say that if you have kids and want to keep claiming working tax credits that as of april 2012 you have to work a minimum of 24 hours...not a huge problem for my husband as he can ask for an extra hour a day, but i assume for some people this will be a problem!!!!
Michelle

Oldernotwiser

Personally, I don't think we should be encouraging people to only work part time by subsidising them.

adewolves

We got the letter today as well. I don't work and my wife works 16 hours a week so we won't be entitled to working tax credit anymore from what I can gather. The only other benefits we get are child tax credit and child benefit. We will be nearly £72.00 a week worse off, surely there must be something else we can claim, if we can't we wouldn't be able to survive. Any advice would be most welcome.

BigAunty

Yes, there are tax credit changes as you have described. It's not the case that the claimant has to increase the hours of their current job, they can take another on top, so if their current employer can't give them extra hours, they can find a cleaning or bar job, for example.

"Note: From 6 April 2012, there will be a change to the Tax Credit eligibility rules. Couples with children will be required to work at least 24 hours weekly. Hours can be added together but one customer must be working at least 16 hours weekly to qualify for Working Tax Credit."

I'm with ONW on this one - I know that tax credits were introduced to encourage people to at least take part time or low paid work rather than no employment at all. But the unintended consequence is that there are now many households who will not work full time even if they have the opportunity because the subsidy they get, and the extra free time they enjoy, doesn't make it attractive to them.

The rules are changing so that two healthy adults are required to upgrade their potential employment time from approx 23% of the proportion of two adults working full time (16 hours out of a potential 70 hour working week) , up to 34%....

So the household is now required to spend a third of their time working compared to a 2 person full time working household, instead of a quarter....No violins required.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/tcmanual/TCM0114120.htm

Fiver29

adewolves wrote: »

We got the letter today as well. I don't work and my wife works 16 hours a week so we won't be entitled to working tax credit anymore from what I can gather. The only other benefits we get are child tax credit and child benefit. We will be nearly £72.00 a week worse off, surely there must be something else we can claim, if we can't we wouldn't be able to survive. Any advice would be most welcome.

Are you looking for work, or do you have a disability that stops you working?

adewolves

Trying to get a part time job over here is a nightmare never mind a full time job, there's even a waiting list for paper jobs...that aint a joke. I just don't know how we would survive without that money...simply put we couldn't, surely there must be something else we can claim to make up the (massive to us) difference.

geordie_joe

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Personally, I don't think we should be encouraging people to only work part time by subsidising them.

The problem for a lot of people, including me, is that their employers will only employ people on a part time basis.

I would love to work fulltime, but there are 200 people applying for every full time job round here, and there are very few full time job vacancies around here.

I too have had the letter today and will lose my £288 per month tax credit in April.

I did a housing benefit check, and as long as the rules for that don't change in April, I will get £200 per month Housing Benefit.

This will mean I lose £88 per month and I will be getting exactly the same amount of money as I was getting while unemployed.

I am only working for that extra £88 per month!

Oldernotwiser

geordie_joe wrote: »

The problem for a lot of people, including me, is that their employers will only employ people on a part time basis.

I would love to work fulltime, but there are 200 people applying for every full time job round here, and there are very few full time job vacancies around here.

I too have had the letter today and will lose my £288 per month tax credit in April.

I did a housing benefit check, and as long as the rules for that don't change in April, I will get £200 per month Housing Benefit.

This will mean I lose £88 per month and I will be getting exactly the same amount of money as I was getting while unemployed.

I am only working for that extra £88 per month!

No you're not - you're working for both your wages and the tax credits that come with them!

Oldernotwiser

adewolves wrote: »

Trying to get a part time job over here is a nightmare never mind a full time job, there's even a waiting list for paper jobs...that aint a joke. I just don't know how we would survive without that money...simply put we couldn't, surely there must be something else we can claim to make up the (massive to us) difference.

One of you could look into some kind of self employment, although you still have some months to go before the changes come in and one of you might well get a job in that time.

Oldernotwiser

BigAunty wrote: »

Yes, there are tax credit changes as you have described. It's not the case that the claimant has to increase the hours of their current job, they can take another on top, so if their current employer can't give them extra hours, they can find a cleaning or bar job, for example.

"Note: From 6 April 2012, there will be a change to the Tax Credit eligibility rules. Couples with children will be required to work at least 24 hours weekly. Hours can be added together but one customer must be working at least 16 hours weekly to qualify for Working Tax Credit."

I'm with ONW on this one - I know that tax credits were introduced to encourage people to at least take part time or low paid work rather than no employment at all. But the unintended consequence is that there are now many households who will not work full time even if they have the opportunity because the subsidy they get, and the extra free time they enjoy, doesn't make it attractive to them.

The rules are changing so that two healthy adults are required to upgrade their potential employment time from approx 23% of the proportion of two adults working full time (16 hours out of a potential 70 hour working week) , up to 34%....

So the household is now required to spend a third of their time working compared to a 2 person full time working household, instead of a quarter....No violins required.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/tcmanual/TCM0114120.htm

I couldn't believe it when I first learned that two adults only have to do 16 hours between them to be eligible for tax credits - it's quite ridiculous!

BigAunty

adewolves wrote: »

..We will be nearly £72.00 a week worse off, surely there must be something else we can claim, if we can't we wouldn't be able to survive. ..

The other poster has calculated that they will receive an increase in housing benefit that leaves them with a shortfall of just about £20 per week which is easily achievable by a bit of modest budgeting - plenty of advice on MSE in how to drive down household costs.

Are you a homeowner or do you rent?