Student finance-Income vs Outgoings 17 August 2022 at 11:55AM in Loans 13 replies 296 views

smallzoo2

Apologies but I cant find my other post.

Basically I asked why my daughter was getting such a low maintenance loan ( £ 1800 for the whole year ) even though the total income for my wife and I is under £40k. It turns out my wife company car takes the income up to nearly £57k due to the company car allowance

Obviously I dont think that is fair as we dont actually earn that income but apparently thats the way the rules work

What I dont understand is that our actual income is around £40k but our outgoings due to mortgage , loans, credit cards are also close to £40k without even considering food, energy bills etc

This means that not only are they saying we earn far more in actual income than we do but also taking in account our outgoings we are really going to struggle to support our daughter in her studies. She is trying to find part-time jobs but she is really going to struggle

is this just normal or is there anything I can do with the SLC to tell them our outgoings

Long shot I know but maybe someone knows

[Deleted User]

If she gets a car allowance, that presumably means you save money on buying / running a car, hence your income is effectively higher hence the calculation

I would suggest if you are paying debts back to the equivalent of your annual combined salary you need to head over to the debt free pages on this site and seek advice as it's clearly not sustainable 

smallzoo2

thanks I know about the debt , I was being more specific should I inform SLC about the outgoings or do they not take the into account at all ?

kaMelo

Something is not right as the minimum maintenance loan is more than that no matter what your earnings are.

If they live at home the minimum available is £3597 for incomes above about £58,250. Living away from home outside London has a minimum loan of about £4500 for incomes above around £62,000.

smallzoo2

Thanks but unfortunately it is correct as they clawed back overpayments from the previous 2 years as they hadn't included my wife car in the calculations so they reduced this years payment

Ebe_Scrooge

smallzoo2 said:

It turns out my wife company car takes the income up to nearly £57k due to the company car allowance

Obviously I dont think that is fair as we dont actually earn that income but apparently thats the way the rules work

A company car (whether it's a car supplied by the company, or a car allowance to allow your wife to buy her own car for business use) is a valuable benefit (or Benefit-In-Kind, I think is the correct term?).  Whatever, that's saving you an awful lot of money compared to someone who has to buy and run a car entirely out of their own pocket.  So it's not unreasonable to calculate that as an element of your income.

smallzoo2 said:

What I dont understand is that our actual income is around £40k but our outgoings due to mortgage , loans, credit cards are also close to £40k without even considering food, energy bills etc

Student loan eligibility is calculated on parent's income, not expenses.  As Farfetch says, as a completely separate issue to your original question, it would be prudent to take stock of your household budget.  If you're spending pretty much all of your income even before accounting for essentials like food and energy bills, then that is clearly not sustainable in the long - or even medium - term.

Albermarle

A company car (whether it's a car supplied by the company, or a car allowance to allow your wife to buy her own car for business use) is a valuable benefit (or Benefit-In-Kind, I think is the correct term?).  Whatever, that's saving you an awful lot of money compared to someone who has to buy and run a car entirely out of their own pocket.  So it's not unreasonable to calculate that as an element of your income.

What you say is perfectly reasonable but it is the amount being taken into account that does not look OK.
I think for it to be  BIK of £20K she would have to be driving a gold Rolls Royce !
More typically it is about £4K to £10K 

OP - where does this huge figure come from ? What company car does she have ?

smallzoo2

Her BIK is £13k a seat arona

Ebe_Scrooge

Albermarle said:

A company car (whether it's a car supplied by the company, or a car allowance to allow your wife to buy her own car for business use) is a valuable benefit (or Benefit-In-Kind, I think is the correct term?).  Whatever, that's saving you an awful lot of money compared to someone who has to buy and run a car entirely out of their own pocket.  So it's not unreasonable to calculate that as an element of your income.

I think for it to be  BIK of £20K she would have to be driving a gold Rolls Royce !
More typically it is about £4K to £10K

smallzoo2 said:

Her BIK is £13k a seat arona

Must admit I'm not fully conversant with how BIK is calculated.  But for comparison, consider how much it would cost you to personally buy a (brand new?) car of that class, then tax and insure it each year, along with any repairs or consumable items (tyres, brakes etc.).  If these costs are all covered by the company, then it would cost you quite a bit more than £13k, so that perhaps doesn't sound unreasonable?

MattMattMattUK

Using an online calculator the BIK for the newest, highest spec version of that car comes in at £8,233, so things get less clear the more information we get.

smallzoo2

dont think so.. this is what they sent ( rounded up )
20/21 P60 income of £15k
Taxable benefit in kind £13,440.00
Total: £29k

the list price on the arena is around £20k

It is mainly used for business so I had to get a car for myself while my wife is on the road so the saving is not actually that much as if she wasn't working with a company car we would have one car between us

Anyway looks like there is nothing I can do but just accept it and try and help my daughter somehow with extra work if I can ( I am 64 though so dont really fancy working more hours than I am ! )