Tax credits could somebody please reply

carlos700

I am feeling a little worried over my tax credits but i do not know whether i am worrying over nothing so i am hoping somebody can put my mind at rest.

Last year after reading this website there was discussions about if you pay into a pension you should take the amount off your p60 when giving your figures to tax credits which i never knew.Last year was the first year that i did it and i ask tax credits is this right and they said yes.

This is my worry as i said i may be worrying over nothing.I gave tax credits our figures for 06-07 as soon as i received our p60 so the annual declaration was done over the phone in may ,a week later i got an award from them saying

PROVISIONAL TAX CREDITS FOR 2007 -2008 it explained on the award that the payments will be only provisional until they send out my final tax credit award.

It is now July and i have not received my final award notice i cannot remember about past years whether i have received another award saying final after receiving one saying provisional.I worry so much incase the amounts they are paying us now are wrong and just in case we end up owing them.

I rang tax credits to ask advice about all of this a few days ago and they said they have confirmed that i have completed my annual declaration for this year but it is now in another department waiting to be processed and the lady said some take longer than others.God knows why i am worrying because i am a honest person but for some reason i am thinking should i have not taken the pension off p60 and my awards are being looked at thats why mine seems to be taken so long to complete

From replys on here everybody who filled there declaration out in April & May seemed to have received there final notices or am i wrong.

CIS

IIRC If its an employers paid pension then the Pension Contributions should already have been deducted at source and the income on your P60 should reflect that already.

From the WTC 2 leaflet

What income will I have to report in my claim?

Broadly, you will have to report in the tax credits claim form income which is taken into account for income tax purposes. But there are important exceptions to this general rule and some are outlined below.
The Tax Credits Helpline will be able to give you more information about what types of income count for tax credit purposes.
We take into account the gross amount of your income, that is, your income before tax and National Insurance contributions have been taken off. Similarly, if you make contributions from your earnings to buy shares in your employer's company under a Share Incentive Plan (SIP), then those contributions must be added back to your gross pay.
However, contributions to any Inland Revenue approved pension scheme (such as an occupational pension scheme, a personal pension plan or retirement annuity) and payments under the Gift Aid or Payroll Giving schemes should be deducted when you work out your income for a tax credit claim. If you made personal pension or retirement annuity contributions, Gift Aid payments or a trading loss (see below), please phone the Helpline for a working sheet (TC825) to help you to work out the income to enter in your tax credits claim.
We take the following types of income into account when we work out how much tax credits to pay

• Salary and wages, including commission, bonuses, tips, gratuities, profit-related pay, holiday pay, SSP and some benefits in kind which may be provided by your employer (for example, car and car fuel, allowances for the use of your own car on business, vouchers and credit tokens). Although SMP, SPP and SAP are taxable, we will take off £100 a week from your income for tax credit purposes.
• Taxable profits from self-employment
• Taxable social security benefits, for example, Carer's Allowance (previously called Invalid Care Allowance) and Incapacity Benefit paid at the short-term higher and long-term rates, including any Child Dependency Increases paid with these benefits - but not benefits which are not taxable, such as, Child Benefit, Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit.
• State retirement pensions (including Widowed Parent's Allowance, Widowed Mother's Allowance, Widow's Pension and Industrial Death Benefit) and occupational or personal pensions - but not war pensions, whether paid on grounds of wounds or disability or paid to widows.
• Most income from savings and investments (for instance, interest from bank and building society accounts, dividends from UK companies, payments from trusts or the estate of a deceased person in administration) - but not income from certain tax-exempt investments, such as, Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), Personal Equity Plans (PEPs) or non-taxable National Savings products.
• Rental income from property - but not income which is exempt from income tax under the rent-a-room scheme (briefly, if you let furnished accommodation in your own home for up to £4,250 a year).
• Foreign income, for example, from investments or property overseas and social security payments from overseas governments, before any overseas tax was taken off but deducting any bank charges or commission when converting foreign currency to pounds. We want to know about all foreign income, whether or not it was received and taxed in the UK, unless you were unable to send the income to the UK because of exchange controls in the country of origin.
• The dependant's grant paid to students with a spouse or unmarried partner or a dependant adult.
• Miscellaneous income such as Business Start-Up Allowances for unemployed people starting their own business or copyright royalties paid to someone who is not a professional author or composer, which is taxable under Case VI of Schedule D of the Taxes Act 1988.

Apart from income from employment, self-employment, taxable social security benefits, student dependant's grant and miscellaneous income, you only need to report other income if it is more than £300 a year in total. If it is, you only need to enter the amount over £300 in the tax credits claim form. If you make a claim as a couple, the £300 limit applies to your joint income, not to each of you separately.

carlos700

Thanks CIS for that information i do not think that it is an employers paid pension i am sure my husband said it is a separate company who deals with pensions who take it out of his wages.

What do you think about why we have not received our final tax credit award notice is it to early in the year to have received it or would you have expected me to have received it by now ??

emilyt

We too haven't recieved our our final tax credit award. This has never happened before. There is no reason i can think of why this has happened. We have also been sent a provsonal tax credit award.
Hope this helps you stop worrying.

petercarots

Theres two possible reasons why you might not have recieved a final award notice:

1) You're in the group of people where theres some problem in the system stopping award notices being issued (unlikely as you've had the provisional notice

2) Theres some peoblem with the renewal form that you sent back/completed over the phone (much more likely in your case) It could be that the computer was unable to pick up some of the income, you might have ticked a box wrong, there might be a query over your personal circumstances that needs resloving.

Whichever way it is, I strongly advise you to contact the helpline to check why you havent recieved the award notice, espescially in case its the second reason. If it is the second reason then come the 31st July, you'll be in the same boat as all the people who havent done a renewal yet - your payments could be suspended until the renewal is completed.

In conclusion, defintely ring the helpline and check, even if you do have to wait in a que for a while

carlos700

Thanks for your replys i rang them twice in the week asking what was happening and both times they said it was being processed in a different depatment so they could give me no idea how long it would take.

I rang back and asked again and it has finally been proccessed they said i should receive it on tuesday so they must have just been busy.They are paying me a couple of one off payments which i am quite pleased about.Thanks again hopefully it is sorted now .

Emily maybe give them a ring to hurry things up i hate the thought of getting provisonal payments .My payments i must say are pretty close to the ones which they said they were going to pay me provisionally.