2 Queries - WTC & ESA50's

marie-20

Just a couple of quick ones.

1. My husband gets ESA and is in the support group but he seems to be getting the ESA50 forms every 6 months or so and every other one he's called in for a medical - is this normal?

2. We have completed our TC renewals but we aren't eligable for WTC as our income is too high. I work 16 hours per week so apparently the limit is £12.5K (ish) and out estimated income for the year is approx £12,960 which is broken down below - is that correct?? If so the it seems that they are still penilising disabled households. We have 3 children aged 9, 7 and 2 non of whom are disabled.

Husbands ESA - £5,110
CA - £2,750
Work - £5,100

However I'm not sure if all of his ESA is taxable - we received his P60 from ESA which was for approx £1,700 and his P45 from IB was around the same as his transfered over last tax year - any ideas, if not I will give ESA a call and ask?

TIA!

HB58

Even in the Support Group people can be reassessed as often as every 3 months. Your husband can try making it very clear on the ESA50 that his condition is never likely to improve (if this is the case) and hope that they eventually get fed up with reassessing him so often.

ESA is fully taxable (once the personal allowance has been accounted for if this is his main income).

I'm afraid that I not have any knowledge of the working tax credit system.

marie-20

It just seems silly to assess so frequently and it certainly doesn't help my husbands frame of mind - every 12 months I could understand but every 3 or 6 seems to be a bit extreme (and a waste of tax payers money!)

I always thought that the whole of ESA and IB was taxable hence the surprise that his total taxable income for 2011 - 2012 was approx £4,400 rather than the £5,800 ish that he actually got so I was unsure whether the support element & age addition (as it used to be on IB) wasn't taxable?

schrodie

That "nice" man Grayling has suggested that resessessing claimants in the SG too frequently is a tad daft and that Atos should be a tad more sensible in the reassessmnet regime. Whether Atos will pay any attention to Grayling is another matter as they do have their targets to stick to!!

marie-20

Well as my husbands condition is degenerative, he is wheelchair bound, incontinent, fall asleep without warning, struggles to hold a conversation etc I find it highly unlikely that he would 'fail' and loose his benefits that said there is nothing more than he would like than to be back out at work rather than stuck in the house depending on people just so that he can 'function'

Testing or re-assessing people so frequently will, most likely, cost them more in the long term rather than doing it once a year especially since it takes over 6 months here to get an appointment at the hospital so this time we have nothing new to submit as his appointments aren't until September and October.

The only issue I really have is that instead of doing this frequently to a few why not do it less frequently to all? My MIL has similar issues to my husband and has been on IB for 28 years - she hasn't been re-assessed for the past 18 years . . . . Yep that's correct 18 years!

Cpt.Scarlet

HB58 wrote: »

ESA is fully taxable (once the personal allowance has been accounted for if this is his main income).

Contribution based ESA is taxable, income related is not.