Applying taper to child tax credit?

tyllwyd

(I posted this on a different board a few days ago, but I've just realised it should probably been here, so I'm trying again. Thanks in advance for any replies!)

Our family income has gone up this year, and I'm trying to work out whether it is going to be worthwhile bothering to give the tax credits people details of our income, or whether just to tell them that we don't want to claim from now on. It's a bit more complicated for me because I'm self-employed, so of course I don't have the final figures to hand yet for 2007-08 and I can only guess at what I'll earn in this tax year.

Does anyone know what your joint income has to be for the child tax credit to be reduced to zero?

For the tax credit that they are paying now (April 2008 onwards) - is this based on your income for the previous year (2007-08) or the year before that (2006-07)?

At the moment, they are paying us a little bit of tax credit but I'm pretty sure that in this tax year (2008-09) we are going to earn too much and won't be entitled to anything. Does that mean that the tax credit they are paying now will be OK because it is based on the previous year's earnings, or are they going to ask for anything paid from April 08 back? (I've got no problem paying it back, it's just that I'd rather not get it in the first place if I'm not entitled to it, to save complications!) If I tell them that I don't want to claim for this tax year, do the payments stop immediately, or will they continue paying until April 09?

Eager_Elephant

Very briefly, the amount that will take you out of scope for Tax Credits is about £58,000. If you earn between £26,000 and £58,000 then you will be entitled to the family rate which is about £10 per week.

Unfortunately you just can't ring up to cancel Tax Credits, once your in the system you are stuck!!!

The only way to stop them paying you is to tell them that your income is above £58,000.

The reviews are due out for last year so you will have to give last years figures on here so if you have earnt too much this will take you over the limit and you may have to pay a small amount back.

EE

[Deleted User]

The only way to stop the claim immediately is to call up and inform TCO that your partner has moved out.

You dont need to give any further info, just the date they "moved out".

But if you end the claim like this and decide to claim again you wll need to fill in a totally new claim form.

tyllwyd

Thanks folks! I don't want to complicate the situation by telling them something that I know isn't true, so I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and sort out my accounts so I can give them last year's figures for this annual review. I tried to give them a generous estimate at the last review, so I'm hoping it shouldn't have been too far out. For this year, I think I'll give them an estimate over £58K, so I can claim money from them if I've got it wrong, rather than the other way round. And I'm going to put the bit of money that they are giving us now into an ISA so if they ask for it back at least I know where to find it from!