TC info for sister please re working hours

brians_daughter

Hi all,. my sister has just been asking do i know where she stands re TC, i do not as i do not claim them.She knows i am a member here so i said i would ask.

At present she works 25 hrs a week (without OT but has always managed to pick up an extra 40 hrs a month or so but understands this may change soon)

She has 2 children (shes a widow so no OH) Shes had a team meeting at work and they have changed her rota (apparantly they are within their rights to do this as per her contract)

She works on a 4 week rota and will now be working (from memory) 40hrs week 1, 13hrs week 2, 32 hours week 3 and 15 week 4.

Her understanding is that to be in receipt of the working element she needs to work a minimum of 16 hours a week.

Is this the case or is it averaged on a monthly/quarterly/annual basis?

TIA Anna

NotSuchASmugMarriedNow

Umm, your sisters circumstances sound similar mine - I just averaged my working hours out and told tax credits the average - never occuredto me to do anything else to be honest.

brians_daughter

Well I would have said that was the logical approach but her manager pointed out in the meeting " this may impact any tc any of you receive due to minimum working hours for entitlement, head office have advised all employees who maybe impacted to contact hmrc directly" Now, this could have been them covering their own backs or maybe they don't know how the system works so are advising ppl to sort out thier own affairs? I dunno but she's quite worried about it all x

RAS

I am pretty sure it is averaged (think of all those people who work during school/college terms and maybe nil in the holidays - they work on the average).

Icequeen99

There is no provision in tax credit legislation for averaging.

Strictly, the 16 hours is based on the hours you 'usually' work which is very unhelpful.

If you look on the HMRC website, it says 'If your hours vary from week to week, put down what you and your employer(s) think of as your normal number of paid hours.' (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcredits/start/claiming/income-hours/work-out-hours.htm)

However, the TC600 claim form notes have some useful examples. One of them is where the person works different hours every other week (14 and then 18) and they allow averaging over 2 weeks. I think you could argue the same in this case because it is a set rota of hours. So if you are going to work 40, 13, 32, 15 and it is the same every 4 weeks you can average them.

It would be different if you worked different hours every week of the year, like an agency worker. In that case the guidance doesn't suggest averaging.

IQ