ema& carers allowance

autismmum

my dear daughter is taught at home and doing so well that a local college is taking her on a year early, ema said they would therefore pay her from the monday after she is 16, as she will be pat way through a 12 hour a week course, she has been a carer with me for both my sons and i get ca for my eldest, and she is applying for ca for my youngest, as we work together on night shifts for settling down and taking them to their fav shops ect, so anyway i was told by ben agency that ema payments wont affect her claim, and ema said ca doesnt affect her claim, so here she has been told she will get 80.00 per week, she is a very sweet girl and i know she will not spend but save, but it seems a lot, i am worried that its too good to be true, as we will still recieve wftc for her whilst she's at college. any advice appreciated on weather they are correct or she will have to repay.. thanks

suelees1

I'm not in work so don't have access to my books but off the top of my head can't see how you can continue to claim for her as a dependant whilst she claims CA for herself. It definitely needs checking so hopefully someone else will come on to clarify.

autismmum

i supose its cause she will be too young for other benefits, but im just as confused, i think the problem is that tax office and ben office are seperate. hope someone will advise me correctly.

autismmum

bump anyone know this?

dmg24

I don't know the answer, but I would imagine that the problem you will have is that if she is in receipt of Carers, she will in effect be working for 35 hours, and therefore cannot be in full time education as well.

I don't know where the best place would be to get an answer. I'll see what I can find out later x

lil_me

FT students can't apply for CA but that would be 21 hours plus a week. You cannot however IIRC claim CTC or CB for a child who is only in PT education which I think is classed as not less than 12 hours. What is strange here of course is the difference between what is classed as full and part time when it comes to different benefits. http://www.litrg.org.uk/help/lowincome/taxcredits/childtaxcredit.cfm#resp there is no info on there about CA, just states about if the person claims IB in their own right, CTC for their child etc.

Then found this

Cases where you cannot continue to claim for a young person
If a young person leaves full-time education or enrols on a training course, then takes up paid work for 24 hours a week or more, you cannot normally continue to claim CTC for them for as long as they are engaged in that work. However, there are exceptions to this rule where the young person's work is:

• for a charity;
• as a carer;
• in pursuance of an Intensive Activity Programme or a sports award;
• as a participant in an Employment Zone programme.

Nor can you continue to claim for a young person who:

• starts on a training programme for which a training allowance is payable;
• becomes entitled in their own right to income support or income-based jobseeker's allowance.

Which would suggest if the 24+ hours are as a carer they can still be claimed for.

autismmum

i know, both ben agency and ema hotline say she can have it and so i asked wftcr people and they say yes too, so im amazed, so we will still get support cause she is a carer and she will get ca cause she is only doing 12 hours at college, college say she qualifies for ema at 30.00 and ca is 50.00 so thats 80.00 per week !!

Gemmzie

It's one of the very few benefit loopholes that work to an advantage for young people.

Full-time for EMA purposes is 12 hours in lessons, full-time for carers is 35 hours - you can do both in a week and be under the 48 hours that the EU specify for working hours.

Not entirely sure if you can continue to get CTC and CB for her if she's on CA though...

flipcat

Not sure if her carers allowance at end of year will be classed as household income when it comes to CTC annual income as CA is classed as income.That will be around two and a half thousand extra to declare so then following year less CTC,but not 100% sure if her income is classed in the household end of year income because she is only 16......

autismmum

im not sure what to do still, colege has confirmed its def only 12 hours, c.a. dont seem to know about wftcr, and ema knows nothing about c.a. lol wana get three phones and stick them together with masking tape and in half an hour i'll know, the problem is each time i call i speak to somone else and the whole story starts again, perhaps i should record it lol

lil_me

Ask for the information in writing that they are aware of the claims for ema & wtc in the case of carers allowance, from ema that they are aware of ca and wtc etc etc then if anything happens, you've got it in writing.