Working tax credit

Lemonadedrinker

Just a little question. what are the circumstances when someone earn less then £16100, and get child tax and no working tax and be entitled to Free school meals ? Any explanations ?

Ezorqs

If you are working over 16hrs per week, you might be able to claim working tax credits. Income will be taken into account over a certain limit I believe that it starts at around £6420. It then reduces by 41p for every £1 earned (Darksparkle 2018). To be clear this would work out roughly the same even if you are paid weekly or monthly. Eventually reducing to zero, but this does depend on more circumstances than you have provided. For example number of children, partners working hours/wages and so on.

Provided that you have Child Tax Credits but don't get working tax credits and your income is less than £16,190 per year you should get free school meals.

Could you...rephrase your question if this didn't answer your query?

Lemonadedrinker

I can't work out how a family could earn less then £16100 and not get working tax...what has happened to the family for them not to be entitled to working tax ?

Ezorqs

Without asking the family in question this is really hard to answer. They might have other income such as occupational pensions, savings, other benefits that are taken into account... many many things.

I would strongly advise them to use EntitledTo or Turn2us to do a quick benefits check up, this would also show them why working tax credits are zeroed. Have they applied for working tax credits? (Prime culprit).

Lemonadedrinker

Thanks for your reply I was just a little confused as I earn less then £16100, I'm a single parent with an 11 year old, last year I earned more then £20k and this year I'm gonna earn £14800, I recieve child tax but no working tax until next year.I work over 16 hrs .I been told on this site I'm not entitled to free school dinners , my tax credits review doesn't even mention working tax in any calculation until 2019-20 so that was why I was asking what has to happen to a family to not get working tax credit

Darksparkle

You meet the qualifying conditions for WTC as you are a single parent and work over 16hrs per week. As I mentioned before, the criteria is that you cannot be entitled to WTC, you are entitled.

You don't receive any payment of WTC though as your income for tax credit purposes is too high. Your tax credits for 2018/19 is calculated on an income of £17,300 due to the £2,500 disregard for income decreases and increases.

For you to get free school meals you would need to work less than 16hrs per week.

Darksparkle

Ezorqs wrote: »

If you are working over 16hrs per week, you might be able to claim working tax credits. Income will be taken into account over a certain limit I believe that it starts at around £6000 and increases for every £250 you earn over that per year. To be clear this would work out roughly the same even if you are paid weekly or monthly. Eventually reducing to zero, but this does depend on more circumstances than you have provided. For example number of children, partners working hours/wages and so on.

Provided that you have Child Tax Credits but don't get working tax credits and your income is less than £16,190 per year you should get free school meals.

Could you...rephrase your question if this didn't answer your query?

WTC begins to reduce once the income used to calculate tax credits reaches £6420. It then reduces by 41p for every £1 earned.

Ezorqs

Ah, thanks Dark, I was using the Capital Tariff reduction as I wasn't so familiar with the WTC rules. I'll edit my post for clarification.

Darksparkle

Ezorqs wrote: »

Ah, thanks Dark, I was using the Capital Tariff reduction as I wasn't so familiar with the WTC rules. I'll edit my post for clarification.

Tax credits has no capital tariff reduction. Might be an idea to read up a bit more on tax credits before offering advice on it.

Ezorqs

Hi, I might have used the wrong rate but otherwise the answer was correct, including the reason as to why the WTC was not being paid. Thank you for the correction nevertheless.