Tax credits stopping in April 2012

fatblackandwhite

Upsydaisyoh wrote: »

Hi All, hope someone can offer some advice. My husband left me last week. We currently do not claim tax credits as our joint income was over 42k. However now he has left I will have to start claiming to make ends meet each month. I have 2 children aged 7 & 3. I claim disability living allowance at the middle rate for my eldest daughter. I work 22.5 hours per week and earn £1276.40 before tax each month (£15316.80 annually).
Do the changes in the budget from 16 to 24 hours mean that I would have to increase my working hours to 24 hours per week to be able to claim tax credits?

If you are a single parent you will only have to work 16 hours per week. Only couples are affected by the 24 hour rule where one of the couple has to work 16 hours and the other a minimum of 8. When you claim - make sure you tell them about the DLA - will get disability element.

Upsydaisyoh

shedboy94 wrote: »

No offense, but have you actually read any of the posts.......the new rules have been repeated many times over. Clearly you also have internet access so you would be able to search the answer elsewhere.........I may be wrong but I thought the purpose of the forums is to ask questions you have difficulty finding answers to, or for things you wish to discuss, not for repeating questions that have been answered before.

Obviously I am going to find you comment offensive, so if you do not want to help then please don't waste your time commenting.

zagfles

Upsydaisyoh wrote: »

Hi All, hope someone can offer some advice. My husband left me last week. We currently do not claim tax credits as our joint income was over 42k. However now he has left I will have to start claiming to make ends meet each month. I have 2 children aged 7 & 3. I claim disability living allowance at the middle rate for my eldest daughter. I work 22.5 hours per week and earn £1276.40 before tax each month (£15316.80 annually).
Do the changes in the budget from 16 to 24 hours mean that I would have to increase my working hours to 24 hours per week to be able to claim tax credits?

No, single parents only need to work 16 hours for working tax credits. Child tax credits you can get regardless of working hours.

zagfles

Poetmart wrote: »

Changing tax credits from 16 hours to 24 is evil, with no jobs about how can anyone live. The rich have it all now.
Does anyone not see that? Why is their not any public demos in London? Is everyone in this country millionaires?

Do you actually have a clue or have you been swallowing all the propaganda about this? Virtually nobody will lose the sort of amounts the unions, the Labour party and others have been implying they will. The majority of big losers will get most of the tax credits loss back in other benefits.

Sixer

zagfles wrote: »

Do you actually have a clue or have you been swallowing all the propaganda about this? Virtually nobody will lose the sort of amounts the unions, the Labour party and others have been implying they will. The majority of big losers will get most of the tax credits loss back in other benefits.

Well, of course there's also the propaganda that everyone and his wife are deliberately calibrating the hours they work in order to maximise their tax credits. Yes, we know these people exist, but the vast majority of the population just get what jobs they can, with almost every couple aiming to have at least one half of the partnership in full-time work, fill out a tax credit form and just get whatever they're assessed as getting. Most people try to work and try to earn as much as they can.

There's no sane discussion on this topic - as we can see very quickly, just browsing threads hereabouts.

zagfles

Sixer wrote: »

Well, of course there's also the propaganda that everyone and his wife are deliberately calibrating the hours they work in order to maximise their tax credits. Yes, we know these people exist, but the vast majority of the population just get what jobs they can, with almost every couple aiming to have at least one half of the partnership in full-time work, fill out a tax credit form and just get whatever they're assessed as getting. Most people try to work and try to earn as much as they can.

There's no sane discussion on this topic - as we can see very quickly, just browsing threads hereabouts.

Indeed - there's extremist propaganda on both sides, and you'll always get that from the loony fringe. But with this we've had official opposition spokepeople and reputable organisations like the unions basically scaring people to death with inaccurate and disingenous information just to score a few political points.

The amount of times I've heard them tell lies like "people on £17k will lose £70pw in WTC", are they really that ignorant or are they deliberately lying? And then there's the more general "some people will be £4k worse off" when the truth of the matter is that hardly anyone will be £4k worse off, the vast majority will lose nowhere near that amount.

Look at the amount of posts in the benefits forum where people have been panicing that their tax credits will be massively cut - in the vast majority of cases they've been worrying unneccessarily thanks to all the propaganda. In many cases I've told them their tax credits will be going up not down.

Charityworker

zagfles wrote: »

Do you actually have a clue or have you been swallowing all the propaganda about this? Virtually nobody will lose the sort of amounts the unions, the Labour party and others have been implying they will. The majority of big losers will get most of the tax credits loss back in other benefits.

I'm going to be losing £64 a week :eek:

Sparkle_Girl_2

zagfles wrote: »

And then there's the more general "some people will be £4k worse off" when the truth of the matter is that hardly anyone will be £4k worse off, the vast majority will lose nowhere near that amount.

Look at the amount of posts in the benefits forum where people have been panicing that their tax credits will be massively cut - in the vast majority of cases they've been worrying unneccessarily thanks to all the propaganda. In many cases I've told them their tax credits will be going up not down.

It is true than many thousands of people will lose up to £76 week/£304 a month/£4k a year.Mainly couples with children earning less than £17,700 (which is probably where the figures you mention come from)
Changes to working tax credits,from April, means that couples with children (not single parents and a few other exemptions) who previously were entitled to working tax credit when one of them worked 16-23 hours will have their tax credits stopped.
The couples who will lose the most (approx £76 a week) will be the poorest of the working parents who would have been entitled to the full amount.
This will include couples who are desperately trying to find more hours/work but cannot find it during the current climate and have taken part time work rather than go on the dole.

Excerpt from an article on thisismoney.co.uk :

'Hundreds of thousands of families face having their income slashed by thousands of pounds due to cuts to tax credits, according to official figures.
At the moment couples with children can qualify for £3,870 Working Tax Credit if they work at least 16 hours a week.
But from April 6 this is increasing to 24 hours a week.

The changes have been branded 'unfair' and there are concerns that it could force more children into poverty as it is unclear whether in the current climate couples will be able to find the extra work.
Many of the people affected work in the retail sector which has been particularly badly hit by the economic climate.

It also means, that for many families, they will be better off on the dole.
The benefit is designed to help out those on the lowest incomes - mainly couples with children earning less than £17,700 a year.

According to the Treasury almost 900,000 people will be affected by the changes - half of whom will be children.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the Independent on Sunday: 'This is a deeply unfair change that will hit parents who are working hard to support their children.'

Sparkle_Girl_2

zagfles wrote: »

Do you actually have a clue or have you been swallowing all the propaganda about this? Virtually nobody will lose the sort of amounts the unions, the Labour party and others have been implying they will. The majority of big losers will get most of the tax credits loss back in other benefits.

900,000 is hardly 'virtually nobody' and the biggest losers will be the children of families affected by this.
There will not be any other benefits introduced to cover this loss and the lowest earners would already be entitled to housing and coucil tax and will not see much of an increase there.

Sparkle_Girl_2

shedboy94 wrote: »

It's hardly evil.......I don't think it is unreasonable for those families who have decided for however long to work the bare min of 16hpw BETWEEN them to have to actually start working and start supporting their own families a bit more instead of relying on the taxpayers of this country.
Not everyone is millionaires, but the vast majority of responsible adults who decide to have children decide to because they can afford to do so.

If we ignore the people who play the system, as you suggest, what about genuine people who cannot increase their hours and ARE genuinely looking for more work ?