Son left education- losing large percentage tax credits

burmesejack

My 18 year old son has left education so we no longer get child tax credit for him.
What I don't uderstand is why our payments are reducing by so much.
We have 3 children left on the claim now and we don't get maximum tax credits due to our income, but it seems like the maximum figure for one child has been taken off our payments?
Within our child tax credit we should get hepl with childcare costs too but this isn't shown on the award separately so very difficult to decipher!! All in all we were getting £192 a week including I think £56.20 towards childcare, but are now due to lose over £55 a week. How can this be? Anyone help?

HappyMJ

burmesejack wrote: »

My 18 year old son has left education so we no longer get child tax credit for him.
What I don't uderstand is why our payments are reducing by so much.
We have 3 children left on the claim now and we don't get maximum tax credits due to our income, but it seems like the maximum figure for one child has been taken off our payments?
Within our child tax credit we should get hepl with childcare costs too but this isn't shown on the award separately so very difficult to decipher!! All in all we were getting £192 a week including I think £56.20 towards childcare, but are now due to lose over £55 a week. How can this be? Anyone help?

The child element of child tax credits are £2,690 per year which is about £52 a week. You will also lose child benefit of about £13 a week.

That's just what it is.

Mara69

Your son will be able to get a job and help out now. Do you and your husband work?

burmesejack

He is working that's why he gave up college, didn't really want to but seemed sensible to grab the chance of a job whilst he had the chance. He is going to pay rent, but with the housing bebefit we'll lose also we stand to be £90 a week down.
We all all working, that's why we claim help with childcare.
And before anyone asks, my husband works 43 hours (but ends up putting more than that in each week unpaid).
I work 18 hours on low wages as retail, but we are paying over half my wages to childcare.
It was just the tax credits system I don't understand, couldn't see why we lose the full amount for 1 child when we don't actually get paid the full amount for him that's all.

burmesejack

Mara69 wrote: »

Your son will be able to get a job and help out now. Do you and your husband work?

If you'd read the post properly you'd see that myself and my husband both work- I'm 40 years old and always have.

BigAunty

burmesejack wrote: »

My 18 year old son has left education so we no longer get child tax credit for him.
What I don't uderstand is why our payments are reducing by so much.
...we are now due to lose over £55 a week. How can this be? Anyone help?

Yours is a very common post - the bewilderment when the loss of tax credits and child benefit is greater than the sum that an adult child generally contributes as keep from their JSA, Uni or college grant/loan or apprenticeship/employment income.

That's just how it is - the govt pays extra towards children and it is withdrawn suddenly when they are no longer classed as dependent.

There will be a modest deduction from HB and Council tax for a non-dependent who earns employment income which can exaggerate the loss of CB/CTC. Your local council website should have a table that lists the potential loss of HB/CT discount according to their earnings.

Horseunderwater

burmesejack wrote: »

If you'd read the post properly you'd see that myself and my husband both work- I'm 40 years old and always have.

Hi
Why not put your income into the entitled to link found on here (MSE Site) as per your new current situation and see what it comes out at. I think there is space to fill in income from your elder son. It should be reasonably accurate.
The childcare I thought was a max 75% for 2 children max(TC).
Not sure if there is an upper income limit for 3 children, for 2 I know it is something like £32.2k PA. But so far as I know, you get 3 x childrens CTC less the income taper down at 41% to the max of the income threashold and the sums should be on the CTC award notice. Page 4 I think it was on mine. It does sound like they might have made an error, which was why I said pop it into the entitled to checker.

burmesejack

BigAunty wrote: »

Yours is a very common post - the bewilderment when the loss of tax credits and child benefit is greater than the sum that an adult child generally contributes as keep from their JSA, Uni or college grant/loan or apprenticeship/employment income.

That's just how it is - the govt pays extra towards children and it is withdrawn suddenly when they are no longer classed as dependent.

There will be a modest deduction from HB and Council tax for a non-dependent who earns employment income which can exaggerate the loss of CB/CTC. Your local council website should have a table that lists the potential loss of HB/CT discount according to their earnings.

Tha amount of housing benefit we get will be wiped out because of my sons earnings so although he's agreed to pay a generous amount of rent for a young lad we'll still be roughly £30 a week down I think so we need to try and cut food shopping bill. We have a large debt that we're trying to pay which doesn't help matters. Also just realised that with losing housing benefit it will mean our water will no longer be capped(we have a meter), oh heck.

thorsoak

Is your son paying "housekeeping" yet? If not, it is a good opportunity to sit him down, explain about the tax credits/cb etc, and work out how much he should contribute for his keep himself.

BigAunty

burmesejack wrote: »

Tha amount of housing benefit we get will be wiped out because of my sons earnings so although he's agreed to pay a generous amount of rent for a young lad we'll still be roughly £30 a week down I think so we need to try and cut food shopping bill. We have a large debt that we're trying to pay which doesn't help matters. Also just realised that with losing housing benefit it will mean our water will no longer be capped(we have a meter), oh heck.

Yes, many households are better off when their occupants are classed as children rather than non-dependents, as I've said, because of the degree of benefit withdrawal. I assume the govt expects the now adult child to pay for their own food, clothing, transport and so on, therefore the household should place more household expenses on their now grown child.

The only option (apart from double checking your current entitlements) is to take more keep and/or cut down household spend.

There is no magic bullet - each year we get dozens of posts on this forum from parents of children who have just left education who cannot be persuaded that there are no other benefits they can claim to replace the loss of CTC, HB, CB, CT discount, etc.

To help with budgeting, download the MSE budget planner and work through the website to identify cheaper energy, telecom, insurance tariffs, cheap recipes and so forth. There are many tips on how to be ultra thrifty. There is even a recipe website published by an MSE member where a family of 4 can eat for £100 a month for all meals, for example.

Yours is a budgeting, not benefit issue - this board gets deluged with your query at this time of year.

Icequeen99

burmesejack wrote: »

He is working that's why he gave up college, didn't really want to but seemed sensible to grab the chance of a job whilst he had the chance. He is going to pay rent, but with the housing bebefit we'll lose also we stand to be £90 a week down.
We all all working, that's why we claim help with childcare.
And before anyone asks, my husband works 43 hours (but ends up putting more than that in each week unpaid).
I work 18 hours on low wages as retail, but we are paying over half my wages to childcare.
It was just the tax credits system I don't understand, couldn't see why we lose the full amount for 1 child when we don't actually get paid the full amount for him that's all.

Why do you think you are not getting the full amount for him. If you are getting help with childcare costs (i.e being paid part of the childcare element) then you will get full CTC (because childcare is taken away before CTC when they take into account income)

Even if your income is too high to get childcare costs, with 4 children you will be getting maximum for some of them therefore taking 1 off the claim means you lose the maximum. It would only be if 1 child was left on the claim and you were only getting say 3/4 of the child element for them due to income that you wouldn't lose the full amount.

IQ