Is it legal? CTC

Foggster

Long story - short.

I earn too much for CTC and havent claimed them for years.

Ex-partner, father of my only child is soon to be made redundant. Up until then, he has always paid me directly child maintenance. Obviously, once he is made redundant, and assuming he wont be re-employed immediately, he will reduce his payments to me.

I am also single, so only one wage coming into the house.

We have a good relationship, our teenager spends a flexible amount of time between us depending on work commitments. He lives "up the road" so our child flexes between both homes.

Can he legally/morally claim the CTC once he is made redundant. Neither party is planning on "trying it on", we just want to know if it is OK for him to apply for them. If the answer is "No" then so be it, it is a question we are just wanting to ask, no smoke and mirrors or bad intentions.

Many thanks.

Icequeen99

To get CTC you have to be 'responsible for a child'.

This means that the child must normally live with you.

If a child normally lives with two people, and there are competing claims, then it depends on who has main responsibility.

So if the child normally lives with your ex-partner then yes he can claim. But don't forget tax credits are based on annual income, so if is income was fairly good before redundancy he might not get much CTC anyway.

IQ

gardenia101

My ex & I try & split the time our children spend in each house & it tends to work out about 70/30 (with me having them the most). The timings depend on his work (forces) mostly, so this could mean I have them for more of each year, or he'll do a few weeks at a time if he's not away.

When I spoke to TC (as I've been claiming as a single parent since he left) they said that whichever parent was claiming child benefit for those children was the only one who could then claim CTC (& WTC childcare help if appropriate).

TC weren't interested in how much time each child spent in each house.

mikey_bach

Its who ever claims the child benefit for the child can claim the CTCs..

With an I.S claim its the same, who ever gets the CHB gets the I.S entitlement.
I have seen claims where a parent with no chb has claimed CTC but when HMRC became awared of this they stopped the CTC immediately

midnight_express

It's worth remembering that if you give up the child benefit your husband could take the case to the CSA and get up to 15% of your income.

Icequeen99

What has been said about the person claiming child benefit is wrong. The is nothing in tax credits legislation that says you can only claim if you are claiming child benefit. I certainly wouldn't accept everything the helpline says.

Nor is there anything in child benefit legislation that requires you to be claiming CTC.

It happens in some cases that parents decide to split things so one gets CB and the other CTC. As long as the 'normally living with' test is met for CTC then it is fine.