Change to tax credits

FiFithepoodle

Hi, looking for some advice about Tax Credits.

Myself and my partner both work full time but are not high earners so receive Tax credits towards our daughters childcare.

I work for a company but as self employed but I'm pregnant and once the baby arrives i will have to ring Tax credits and inform them.

Does anyone know how long they normally take to change a claim and to start paying the new amount?

we are quite worried about our finances, especially with the new baby on its way this year.

x

System

Adding a newborn is practially immediate with tax credits and can be done over the phone but you need to make a new application for child benefit for the baby on paper.
You should get an application form in your bounty pack from the hospital or you can download it from the HMRC website and failing that you can call into your local HMRC enquiry centre and pick up a Child Benefit form there.

cazj80

When we had our second baby, I rang up a couple of days after the birth and added them to our tax credits. I didn't have to wait for a child benefit number for the second baby, as I had an existing tax credits claim with our first baby, however you do need to do the paper form for the child benefit, with your child benefit number. Tax Credits was changed straight away, you tend to get a few odd payments from them afterwards, then it settles back down again.

no-oneknowsme

Pam17 wrote: »

Adding a newborn is practially immediate with tax credits .

Hi Pam (OP, sorry for hijacking your thread:o).

You say that adding a new baby onto an existing tc claim is almost immediate...you wouldnt happen to know the timescale for a first time claim for a new claimant?

Im asking for a friend , she had a baby 5 weeks ago and applied for child benefit - which has all been sorted and paid - and tax credits which she is still awaiting.

Just wondered if you knew how long it "ususally" takes to get the first payment through.

Thanks

FBaby

To be fair, a new baby doesn't add massive costs in the first few weeks, and those who were working would get maternity pay for some weeks, so I can see how they wouldn't consider this change of situations to be an emergency.

no-oneknowsme

FBaby wrote: »

To be fair, a new baby doesn't add massive costs in the first few weeks, and those who were working would get maternity pay for some weeks, so I can see how they wouldn't consider this change of situations to be an emergency.

Thanks for that...but where exactly did I state that this is considered an emergency?

As you can see the question was directed to Pam!

cazj80

no-oneknowsme wrote: »

Hi Pam (OP, sorry for hijacking your thread:o).

You say that adding a new baby onto an existing tc claim is almost immediate...you wouldnt happen to know the timescale for a first time claim for a new claimant?

Im asking for a friend , she had a baby 5 weeks ago and applied for child benefit - which has all been sorted and paid - and tax credits which she is still awaiting.

Just wondered if you knew how long it "ususally" takes to get the first payment through.

Thanks

Our tax credits took about 5-6 weeks to initially set up, from what I can remember, your friend needs to ask for the tax credits to be backdated to when her baby was born, at least this is what we were told to do with we called up for the tax credits forms after baby was born.

no-oneknowsme

cazj80 wrote: »

Our tax credits took about 5-6 weeks to initially set up, from what I can remember, your friend needs to ask for the tax credits to be backdated to when her baby was born, at least this is what we were told to do with we called up for the tax credits forms after baby was born.

Thanks , thats very helpful.

I think it was around 4 weeks since she had her little one and applied for the tax credits so hopefully it wont be too long now till they are up and running.

Thanks again.