Housing Benefit while receiving high tax credits

Gomes84

Hello first time posting so apologies if iv put this in the wrong place. My husband are both self employed and work from home and look after our three young children no childcare. Due to this are income is very low we receive very high tax credits due to this. We have recently been struggling to buy food etc and every month getting into further debt despite being very frugal. A friend mentioned that she was getting HB and CT help and her circs are prob better than mine. I was always under impression that if you get high tax creds you couldnt get HB etc am I wrong do they count them as income? Thank you in advance!

Housing_Benefit_Officer

Yes Tax Credits are counted as income with some disregards. Make a claim to see if you will qualify for help towards your rent.

BigAunty

Though some years off, if it ever gets implemented at all, you should research how Universal Credit will operate when tax credits are scrapped and numerous separate benefits get bundled together as a single monthly UC payment.

Currently, the benefits system is quite generous to the self employed with low incomes (for example, the in-work benefits in the UK are much higher than many other EU countries, many have systems that discourage part time or low paid self employment).

But the current govt has signalled that they are very unhappy with the long-term benefit dependency of the self employed and so UC will bring in changes to try to encourage the SE to either improve their profit or wind up their businesses and take up regular employment.

Gomes84

Thank you I am just trying to decide whether its worth even filling out the form. Obviously its harder to prove what you earn when your self employed and its also variable. For instance August last year I took in sales 1200 but last month 250. We do have plans to make ourselves much more profitable over the years and as our children grow up and go to school we will obviously have more time to put into our businesses. We do rely heavily on tax credits at the moment but at least we are looking after our children ourselves and not putting them into government paid childcare.

merlin68

They will send you a form to fill in for the last six months profit and loss.
Quiet simple really.

fed_up_and_stressed

Gomes84 wrote: »

Thank you I am just trying to decide whether its worth even filling out the form. Obviously its harder to prove what you earn when your self employed and its also variable. For instance August last year I took in sales 1200 but last month 250. We do have plans to make ourselves much more profitable over the years and as our children grow up and go to school we will obviously have more time to put into our businesses. We do rely heavily on tax credits at the moment but at least we are looking after our children ourselves and not putting them into government paid childcare.

I'm not trying to cause an arguement here and am not passing any comment on it .. Just pointing out by getting tax credits the government is paying for your childcare. They (i.e taxpayers) are just paying you to do it not other people.

FBaby

We do rely heavily on tax credits at the moment but at least we are looking after our children ourselves and not putting them into government paid childcare.

No, that's only good enough for the children of parents who work and earn an income so they pay taxes to help those like you claim much more in benefits than you earn in income and have lucky children to be looked after both their parents. So glad UC is coming, it was long due.

specialboy

Must be hard looking after your own children.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

Specialone wrote: »

I don't think you will qualify for HB if you are claiming TC, however their is no harm in trying

Plenty of people I deal with get Working Tax Credits and claim Housing Benefit.

Gomes84

I also did not mean to sound like I have caused an argument. I also realise that we are lucky to be self employed and able to stay at home with the children but it is hard work trying to get an income around three children under three. My husband has worked for over 20 years in the security industry killing himself working 30 hour shifts sometimes and paying crazy crazy money in tax and we never had any help. I have run my own business and paid alot in to the tax system for over 10 years and also been employed by the DWP paying high tax so I believe taking four years of low income and help from the system is no issue if we are doing it to get the best out of these early years. We all know it goes very fast. Like I say we have normally been able to cope but recently seem to be really really struggling so even if we could get some help for 6 months until the oldest goes to school it would be a relief. I have an appointment with them tomorrow so I will just ask them what they think. If i have to fill in a profit and loss form thats fine I have everything for my own accounts thank you for that info.

Gomes84

fed_up_and_stressed wrote: »

I'm not trying to cause an arguement here and am not passing any comment on it .. Just pointing out by getting tax credits the government is paying for your childcare. They (i.e taxpayers) are just paying you to do it not other people.

I agree with you completely what I meant is whichever way you go about it go out to work 30 hours or more and pay tax and use childcare with help from gov(which i am not saying is a bad thing) or work from home earn less and receive help from the government directly it all works out at the same thing I am not necessarily receiving more or less than the next person just in a different way. We have been lucky to go self employed but also know that if over the next 2 years we dont make more profit then we will have to change tack or get an employed job again.