Tax credits / Entitled to?

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

Hi,

How accurate is the entitled to website? I was looking at how much my tax credits will drop in Sept when my youngest daughter starts full time school.

The tax credit calculator says that my payments will drop to £15 a week.
Entitled to says they will be £187.00 a week

Obviously that’s a big difference.

At the moment, I only work part time but If the payments drop to £15 then in Sept I will need to work full time (something my work cant accommodate) so I'd need to start looking for another job

Darksparkle

I'm assuming the drop is due to childcare?

It can be spot on if filled in correctly.

When you say the tax credit calculator are you referring to the gov one? That only shows what you are entitled to from today until 5th April. Have you factored that in?

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

Darksparkle wrote: »

I'm assuming the drop is due to childcare?

It can be spot on if filled in correctly.

When you say the tax credit calculator are you referring to the gov one? That only shows what you are entitled to from today until 5th April. Have you factored that in?

Do'h. No I didn't factor that in, I forgot about that!!!

Panic over! :rotfl:

I was having all sorts of visions of trying to find a new job (Which I don't want to do as I really like mine haha)

paddedjohn

I'm sure we would all love to work part time and have our wages topped up by £187 benefits, if you can work more then you should.

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

paddedjohn wrote: »

I'm sure we would all love to work part time and have our wages topped up by £187 benefits, if you can work more then you should.

Just have a re-read of my original post and read the part in the brackets about my work being unable to accommodate more hours. It's not as easy as "upping" my hours, I'd have to find a new job (which would no where near pay the hourly rate of pay that I am on now)

Now take into account that my kids are still young, and I'm single. No matter what job I get, it will need to be part time so I can do school drop off and collection until my children are old enough to look after themselves (at 4 years old I don't think my youngest is "quite" ready to tackle the school run on her own)

If I was to work full time, which is something I don't want to do for a number of reasons. I would actually be entitled to MORE benefits. Lets assume I'd get a job, 37.5 hours a week working in an office where the rate of pay is above minimum wage but at £7ph. That's £262 a week before tax. I know childcare costs for before and after school are £14 a day, per child, and that's only term time. That's £140 a week. I'd STILL be claiming WTC & CTC and they'd be a lot more than £187 a week.

Darksparkle

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel wrote: »

If I was to work full time, which is something I don't want to do for a number of reasons. I would actually be entitled to MORE benefits. Lets assume I'd get a job, 37.5 hours a week working in an office where the rate of pay is above minimum wage but at £7ph. That's £262 a week before tax. I know childcare costs for before and after school are £14 a day, per child, and that's only term time. That's £140 a week. I'd STILL be claiming WTC & CTC and they'd be a lot more than £187 a week.

This is correct. Using £7.20 ph due to the April increase and term time childcare of £140 per week for 2 children, tax credits would be approx £222 per week.

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

Darksparkle wrote: »

This is correct. Using £7.20 ph due to the April increase and term time childcare of £140 per week for 2 children, tax credits would be approx £222 per week.

And this is, of course, assuming I would get EVERY day off during the 11 weeks school holiday per year. Which wouldn't be feasible on the 6 weeks per year holiday I'd be entitled to so then it would be £36 per day per child out of term time so that's another £1800 childcare per year (based on 5 weeks holiday, assuming I'd get 6 weeks off and there would be no issues) - And no, their dad wont have them as he decided he doesn't want to be a dad any more to our kids but is happily enough playing "daddy" with the new Mrs's kids (That was nice of him wasn't it)

See - I'm actually costing "the tax payer" (Incidentally, I AM a tax payer...) less working part time