IS Vs WTC and IB

PeteB_2000

Hi,

Im just moving onto IB as I no longer get SSP have been advised that this will be £55 a week, first question is this figure right???, Im a married man 34 years old with a 1 year old daughter and a 2 year old son and have a mortgage on our home?

The next question is my wife works a few evenings a week totalling 16 hours, she dosent get paid much 5.74 an hour I think, at the mo we get CB CTC snd WTC, and maybe entitled to CTB, at my first Benefits interview this morning the girl who I saw sorted of hinted that it maybe worthwhile if my wife only did 15 hours as then we would get IS which includes free healthcare and mortgage interest help after so long, can anyone advise which route is best WTC Vs IS and financilly which option pays the most.

Regards
Pete

Fran

The best thing to do is take your figures into your Citizens Advice Bureau or similar and they can do a "better off calculation", showing you in which situation you might be better off than the other.

PeteB_2000

ok thanks I`ll do that

BenefitMaster

IN general, if you are receving WTC and CTC, you will get the 'free' healthcare ebnefits in any case. It is never good to reduce work just to get a benefit - the top-up would not be sufficient to gain anything in any case, since 5.74 per hour is £91.48 gross, much more than the £20-30 IS you are likely to receive as a top up.

Fran

BenefitMaster wrote:

It is never good to reduce work just to get a benefit

In some cases it can be worth reducing eg. by an hour such as in this case. That's why it's important to get the figures checked properly.

Spendless

BenefitMaster wrote:

. It is never good to reduce work just to get a benefit - the top-up would not be sufficient to gain anything in any case, since 5.74 per hour is £91.48 gross, much more than the £20-30 IS you are likely to receive as a top up.

I disagree, if by reducing hours worked you will qualify for council tax benefit, housing,benefit. free school dinners. It might be worth cutting hours. I know if we were ever to find ourselves in a situation where me and husband lost our jobs I know I would ask for a bettter off calculation to be done for myself.

PeteB_2000

thats id true as ive been led to believe that we will only get mortgage interest help if we are on IS and that we wont get it if we are on WTC

Pete