Working Tax Credits and Variable Hours

SouthUKMan

I'm hoping someone can guide me with whether I can claim for Working Tax Credits. Due to a recent change in work situation, I have gone from being contracted to working full time hours / five days a week to being contracted to just three days a week. However some weeks I do end up topping this up to near full time work for the same employer. Everything I earn is PAYE. The problem I have is that I genuinely don't know from week to week if I will have the extra work or not.

How can I explain this to the Working Tax Credits people? I've only been in this situation for three months and there really is no pattern emerging in terms of my hours or monthly wage. I don't want to claim and then have to pay everything back. Likewise I don't want to miss out on entitlements because like so many people I really do struggle financially! Any guidance will be greatly appreciated.

HappyMJ

Over the 3 months...13 weeks...how many hours do you do on average. You don't have to claim week to week you can average your hours over a certain period. 13 weeks will be fine.

If it works out you aren't doing enough hours then stop claiming or look for more work. You could do self employed work, registering with HMRC and meeting the requirements such as attempting to earn enough to pay yourself minimum wage plus expenses. Short term periods in which you don't earn any profit is fine but if the long term outlook of your business is always making losses with no prospect of a profit then it may not be looked upon favourably.

Icequeen99

HappyMJ wrote: »

Over the 3 months...13 weeks...how many hours do you do on average. You don't have to claim week to week you can average your hours over a certain period. 13 weeks will be fine.

If it works out you aren't doing enough hours then stop claiming or look for more work. You could do self employed work, registering with HMRC and meeting the requirements such as attempting to earn enough to pay yourself minimum wage plus expenses. Short term periods in which you don't earn any profit is fine but if the long term outlook of your business is always making losses with no prospect of a profit then it may not be looked upon favourably.

Unless the OP has a 13 week cycle he can't average in this way.

The legislation says it is the hours you 'normally' work. HMRC have interpreted this as meaning you need to work those hours every week but they allow a period of 4 weeks for the hours to fall below the requirement. If there is no pattern to the OP's work then he needs to keep a very close eye on it.

IQ