Working tax credits and overtime

delsus

I have recently turned 25 and I am looking at working tax credits, my main issue is that my contract has been 16 hours, but will be increasing to 20 hours when the paperwork goes through. My issue is that I tend to work a lot of overtime (I have never seen my basic hours) for instance my last few months I have rarely worked below 39 hours per week but obviously I could get pushed down to 20 hours per week at any time.

Because of this I'm not too sure what to type in the eligibility checker and application. I was wondering if anyone here had any suggestion as I wouldn't want to get overpaid.

Thanks for any help

pmlindyloo

There is very little guidance about this.

I have found this:

http://www.revenuebenefits.org.uk/tax-credits/guidance/how-do-tax-credits-work/entitlement/wtc-elements/

which says that if there is a regular pattern to your hours being over 30 then this will be acceptable.

To be honest, if you do 39 hrs a week at the NMW you wouldn't be eligible for much in the way of tax credits anyway. (Cut off point per year is about £14000.)

Can you speak to your employer and ask how likely it is that the overtime will be available in the future?

By the way, were you working last year?

Blondbubbles (tax credits guru!) might be able to shed more light on this.

trollopscarletwoman

It depends what your perspective is on this one.

My wife does a lot of big hours (often 70) and a poster on here worked it out that in reality she is paying 70% tax.

More hours reduce the credits you get. Are you basically working for nothing or fulfilling social responsibilty to yourself.

Perhaps try and work just over the 30 mark. That's the way it was explained to me.

As its a seasonal job, off for 2.5 months of the year, I suppose we should end the claim but never have without any problems.

Mind, you the working tax credit element is down to around £8 per month 2014-15 if I read the summary right so nobody would be interested.

delsus

pmlindyloo wrote: »

There is very little guidance about this.

I have found this:

http://www.revenuebenefits.org.uk/tax-credits/guidance/how-do-tax-credits-work/entitlement/wtc-elements/

which says that if there is a regular pattern to your hours being over 30 then this will be acceptable.

To be honest, if you do 39 hrs a week at the NMW you wouldn't be eligible for much in the way of tax credits anyway. (Cut off point per year is about £14000.)

Can you speak to your employer and ask how likely it is that the overtime will be available in the future?

By the way, were you working last year?

Blondbubbles (tax credits guru!) might be able to shed more light on this.

I was working, but only from July, so my salary was smaller. The problem with the overtime is that a lot of it is based on holidays, so if no one is on holiday there isn't much, and then depending on specific needs of the store Head Office might allow more overtime, so it can be hard to work out over a longer period. But we have just taken more staff on so I might wait at least a couple of weeks to see how that will affect my overtime.