Will they backdate? Confused!!

Worriedmummy

Hello - I'm hoping for a bit of advice please.
For the last year we haven’t claimed any child tax credits as we thought our income was too high. My partner is self employed and we find it very difficult to estimate his income. We have just started his tax return and its obvious that his business has done a lot worse than we thought and therefore would have been entitled to tax credits for tax year ending April 12… Is there anyway of having this backdated? I’m guessing not from their website, but it does seem pretty unfair and they would certainly backdate any overpayments that needed to be returned!!

My second question is what exactly is the earnings limit now for claiming with 2 children? I’ve just done the online calculator and its saying we are entitled to £1187 for 2012/13… but our total earnings are just over £38K.. I thought they had brought the threshold down? Or have they just not updated the calculator?

Icequeen99

Did you renew your claim and leave it on a Nil award or did you let your claim lapse in April 2011?

If you kept your claim on the system and left it on a nil award, then you will get payments for 11/12 when you give your income on the renewal form. If you didn't, you need to apply straight away.

IQ

Worriedmummy

we let it lapse - didnt see the point in doing all that paperwork when we were told by them that we earn too much.
Forms are on there way in the post to us, but they said in the phone we could only back date 1 month! ... I just think this is unfair to self employed people who can't easily estimate what they will earn. We could have estimated much lower I guess, but then they would have claimed it back if we got overpaid!

Icequeen99

Worriedmummy wrote: »

we let it lapse - didnt see the point in doing all that paperwork when we were told by them that we earn too much.
Forms are on there way in the post to us, but they said in the phone we could only back date 1 month! ... I just think this is unfair to self employed people who can't easily estimate what they will earn. We could have estimated much lower I guess, but then they would have claimed it back if we got overpaid!

It is for this reason that people should stay in the system, even if they think they won't earn anything. That way, if income does fall, you get the whole amount for the year rather than one month backdating.

Unfortunately, there isn't anything you can do about it now. The letter that was sent to ask you about the claim lapsing included info that suggested you stay in the system if your income might fall. For the self-employed, it is even more important.

IQ