tax credits, working varying hours per week

tdm

i am looking at changing my job but the amount of hours will not be the same every week, most weeks i will be working 31 hours but a few will be around 16 hours. how does this work when claiming ? x

Conor_3

Personally, and this is my own take on this, if it's only a few weeks that it's below that, I'd keep quiet as most of the time you're complying and your award won't be that far out anyway.

clairec79

I just declare an average - I think I declared 23hours (because you can't do half hours), I more often do 30 hours a week but this week I'm only doing 15 but it all evens out, but I don't feel confident enough to declare the 30+hours and get that extra payment when my average is just below 30, even though most weeks I do do 30

System

If you declare 30 hours per week when it actually less than that and your income at the end of the year works out at less than the mimimum wage (based on 30hrs per wk) then it's possible your claim will be selected for investigation by the TCO compliance section.

This is because working 30hrs or more per week means you are awarded the 30hr element of WTC ie: extra money.

hotblu

Hello tdm,

TCO's line on varying hours is to work out an average over a 4 week period. So for example, the week you do less than 30 wil be week 1, and then keep a note of how many hours you do over the following 3 weeks (total of 4 weeks) and work the average, if less than 30 you would need to do coc's.

HTH

Hotblu