What is this payment? (tax credits)

rachymoo

Hello, I’m a bit confused and hoping someone can shed some light. We recently did our tax credits renewal – for the past year we have been receiving £86 per week (we have 2 young children) but due to our income being very low (my partner’s self employed income was 0 as his business made a loss and my income was only £9k due to being on maternity leave), we were told to expect that we would be owed quite a large amount.

We haven’t yet received a letter but yesterday we had a payment of £186 go into our account – this was unexpected as we normally get our £86 paid in every Monday. Does anyone know what this payment would have been? We had been put under the impression we were owed quite a bit more than this so I’m not sure whether this is in fact all of the backpay we are owed or whether this payment is something entirely different. Do they normally make a payment before they pay you the ‘backpay’ that you are owed? If anyone could shed some light I would be very grateful.

rachymoo

Anyone? I’m starting to worry now in case they’ve made a mistake…

Icequeen99

There are so many explanations without seeing the paperwork it is hard to say.

Did you deduct his loss from your income?

IQ

rachymoo

My partner phoned up to do the renewal but yes he did – when he’d previously spoken to them about something else he’d asked about this and they said the loss should be offset against our combined income. I wasn’t convinced this was correct (I thought it should only be against HIS income) so I called and spoke to someone else who told me it was correct. So I’m very much hoping it is! don’t want to end up being paid money that we’re not owed.