Starting Part Time Job will it affect my benefits?

Mummy_Sarah

Hi everyone

I started a new job, as a christmas temp, hopefully going to be kept on in january. I work 16 hours a week approx and earn around 5000 a year.
My partner is working full time and earns 14,800. We have two children 4 and 2.
We get 103 a week in child tax
and 133 a month in child benefit
and 17 a month in working tax,

Just wanted to know if working will effect my child tax, dont care about the working tax. Thank you x

Mummy_Sarah

I did an online calculation and it said we would go down to £35 a week and lose our working tax. So that would be a loss of 289.
so my monthly income which is around 540 would be reduced to 251. or 62.75 a week better off. Just a bit gutted really because I never wanted to leave the kids. My son is only 2, and I be going out 4 days a week for about £15 per shift.

zagfles

Mummy_Sarah wrote: »

Hi everyone

I started a new job, as a christmas temp, hopefully going to be kept on in january. I work 20 hours a week approx and earn around 7500.00 a year.
My partner is working full time and earns 14,800. We have two children 4 and 2.
We get 103 a week in child tax
and 133 a month in child benefit
and 17 a month in working tax,

Just wanted to know if working will effect my child tax, dont care about the working tax. Thank you x

Yes, but not till April. If you take the job your tax credits will be a bit lower next tax year, if they keep you on they'll go down again April 2014.

HappyMJ

Mummy_Sarah wrote: »

Hi everyone

I started a new job, as a christmas temp, hopefully going to be kept on in january. I work 20 hours a week approx and earn around 7500.00 a year.
My partner is working full time and earns 14,800. We have two children 4 and 2.
We get 103 a week in child tax
and 133 a month in child benefit
and 17 a month in working tax,

Just wanted to know if working will effect my child tax, dont care about the working tax. Thank you x

Mummy_Sarah wrote: »

I did an online calculation and it said we would go down to £35 a week and lose our working tax. So that would be a loss of 289.
so my monthly income which is around 540 would be reduced to 251. or 62.75 a week better off. Just a bit gutted really because I never wanted to leave the kids. My son is only 2, and I be going out 4 days a week for about £15 per shift.

That's pretty good most people aren't usually better off by that amount.

If you are not on housing or council tax benefit your tax credits in the next tax year will be reduced by 41 pence in the pound that you take home. Assuming you earn minimum wage (£6.19) that means for every hour you work you would actually be earning an extra £3.65 per hour.

If you were on housing and council tax benefits it's almost pound for pound making any extra work not worth it at all.

Mummy_Sarah

so if i earn £100 a week they will reduce my child tax by £41? a week?x

Mummy_Sarah

£1 for £1 that is ridiculous. doesnt give anyone the incentive to get back into work does it.x

HappyMJ

Mummy_Sarah wrote: »

so if i earn £100 a week they will reduce my child tax by £41? a week?x

In the next tax year yes.

Mummy_Sarah wrote: »

£1 for £1 that is ridiculous. doesnt give anyone the incentive to get back into work does it.x

No incentive at all. Universal credits are supposed to be reducing the figure but if child care is needed then the deduction rate is more than 100%. i.e it costs more money than is earnt to go to work and earn anything to pay child care and lose benefits.

zagfles

HappyMJ wrote: »

In the next tax year yes.

Though if she only starts earning now it won't, as they use the full tax year's income and she'll have worked for less than half of it.

No incentive at all. Universal credits are supposed to be reducing the figure but if child care is needed then the deduction rate is more than 100%. i.e it costs more money than is earnt to go to work and earn anything to pay child care and lose benefits.

This depends on earnings and childcare. Yes if earnings are £50pw and childcare is £100pw, then the MDR will be over 100%. But then there's not a point of working, is there, if childcare costs twice what is earned.

But if earnings exceed childcare costs, the MDR is under 100%, at least until the tax allowance is used up. If earnings equal childcare, the MDR is 95%. Which is a lot higher than tax credits where is 71%.

Personally I think it's good policy, as it shifts incentives from second to first earners. Right now there's a big divide between 2-earner and no-earner families, with fewer single earner families than virtually every EU country. Creating a very divided society and unfair spread of jobs.

Currently the MDR for first earners is 100% (after the small JSA disregard), for second earners it's 71% if childcare reqd or 41% if not. Much bigger incentive for second earners.

Under UC, the MDR for first earners will be 65% after a big disregard, for second earners it'll be 95% if childcare reqd, 65% if not with no disregard. Bigger incentive for first earners.

Mummy_Sarah

well we pay £22.50 a week in child care for 3 mornings of two and half hours, but we were paying this before I started working anyway.
I think I can manage on the £65 extra a week, there's plenty of overtime anyway. Just a shock that 40% of child tax is taken off, but as you stated i'm lucky its not £1 for £1. There is plenty of overtime so i'm sure that I could make up the money anyway x

Mummy_Sarah

Following my discovery of me finding out I will be only keeping 59% of my wage because 41% of it will be taken off in child tax I decided to look at other scenarios.
If we decided for me not to go to work and instead have another child (we have two already), we would be having more than if we were both working.
Now with 2 children...
435.20 (me part time doing 16 hours)
237.20 (child tax)
1050 (my partners wage)
133 (child benefit)
=1855.40

with 3 children and not working my part time job
616 (child tax)
1050 (my partners wage)
185 (child benefit)
50 working tax
=1901

with 4 children and not working part time job
824 (child tax)
1050 (my partners wage)
238 (child benefit)
50 (working tax)
=2162

no wonder a lot of people out there are having loads of babies. Personally I don't think its at all fair I got too children and me and my partner work really hard. We have £125 after bills a week bring home and other people in the same circumstances but with another or more children and don't have a part time job are more well off than us. am I wrong in thinking like this. It just doesn't seem fair.

cosmicseahorse

This is really bad news in so many different ways. I don't think it's fair either.