Utter Tax Credit Confusion

fozzeh

Evening all,

I'm getting towards the end of a big mess with tax credits going back to 15/16 and "overpayments"...and I don't get how they can reduce the amount paid when nearly everything between 15/16 and 16/17 compared to 14/15 is so similar.

To factor;
- household income is around £35,000 for 14/15 and doesn't go above that any time after
- one child in childcare continuously apart from 16/17 where I've worked out everything at 24/52 due to starting school.
- amount paid per year in childcare is around £2,000 to 2,400

From 13/14 to 14/15:
income went up 15.35%
child tax credit went down 15.3%

I can fully understand that drop...it's almost expected.

From 14/15 to 15/16:
income went down 5.68%
child tax credit went down 56.2% (!!!)

From 15/16 to 16/17 (calculated pro rata as was only partial year)
income went down by 0.24%
child tax credit went down a further 66.4%

I went from getting £2,200 a year to £325 (85.3%) with a net reduction in salary of 6%/£2,000. Were there that many rule changes which made things so drastically different?

Any assistance before I go book in with the CAB would be appreciated. At the minute, they're asking for around £1,200 in overpayment.

TIA

Darksparkle

It would probably be easier if you could give us your actual circumstances and income for each year in question.

fozzeh

Darksparkle wrote: »

It would probably be easier if you could give us your actual circumstances and income for each year in question.

Suppose it would help really :j

https://postimg.org/image/644canuhhn/

The green amounts exactly match what was received for those years.
15/16 is currently at £1,800 paid (so £800 overpayment)
16/17 is currently at £1,100 paid (so £800 overpayment)

Icequeen99

What is missing from the table is a column that says 'income used to calculate award'.

YEAR TOTAL INCOME INCOME USED TO CALC AWARD

2012/13 £28,843.00 £26,629.00
2013/14 £30,737.00 £28,843.00
2014/15 £35,456.00 £30,737.00
2015/16 £33,441.00 £35,456.00
2016/17 £33,361.00 £33,441.00

So the issue is that your income rise between 2013/14 and 2014/15. wasn't reflected in your award until 2015/16. So that is why you will have seen a reduction in 2015/16 because the increase caught up with you.

That is why your final column doesn't really work with tax credits as the award isn't necessarily linked to the salary for that year.

IQ

fozzeh

Icequeen99 wrote: »

What is missing from the table is a column that says 'income used to calculate award'.

YEAR TOTAL INCOME INCOME USED TO CALC AWARD

2012/13 £28,843.00 £26,629.00
2013/14 £30,737.00 £28,843.00
2014/15 £35,456.00 £30,737.00
2015/16 £33,441.00 £35,456.00
2016/17 £33,361.00 £33,441.00

So the issue is that your income rise between 2013/14 and 2014/15. wasn't reflected in your award until 2015/16. So that is why you will have seen a reduction in 2015/16 because the increase caught up with you.

That is why your final column doesn't really work with tax credits as the award isn't necessarily linked to the salary for that year.

IQ

Those are the actual figures used to calculate and the final awards for the year. Everything from every previous tax years 100% exactly tie in to final salary and final award.

fozzeh

And when I say previous years, I mean everything 14/15 and prior

Icequeen99

fozzeh wrote: »

Those are the actual figures used to calculate and the final awards for the year. Everything from every previous tax years 100% exactly tie in to final salary and final award.

So the figures in your total income column are not your actual income figures for that tax year? That doesn't really match with what you said in your first post which was that your income went to 35k in 2014/15 which is what your table shows.

It would have helped if you could be clear about the figures. What are your actual income figures for the years then?

IQ

fozzeh

Icequeen99 wrote: »

So the figures in your total income column are not your actual income figures for that tax year? That doesn't really match with what you said in your first post which was that your income went to 35k in 2014/15 which is what your table shows.

It would have helped if you could be clear about the figures. What are your actual income figures for the years then?

IQ

Those are final award notice amounts for each corresponding tax year.

Icequeen99

Sorry, i don't think I can help any further.

Award notices often show more than one income figure. What you need to provide is your actual household income figures for those tax years and that will help us check it and explain how an overpayment could have arisen based on income rises.

IQ