lets have a tax credit rant thread

[maighdlin]

as it is the joyful new tax credit year i thought i would start a thread for people to rant on.

our tax credits have gone down to £33pw when according to HMRC calculator it should be £68pw. i received no letter from them informing me of this cut. i phoned them and they are using an estimate of our income based on the assumption that i would have been working full time since having DD, not true was made redundant. They said i can't get it fixed until i receive my renewal pack and i may not receive it until 30 june. GREAT!! DH earns just over 15k we pay 660pm for mortgage and rates. i'm a full time student but most of my money goes on child care. can't get a job as most jobs that i could do are min wage and they would have to pay me more than a 16 year old so 16 year old probably gets job. I feel like banging my head against the wall. even more money worries!!

feel free to vent about tax credits below. overpayments, underpayments, their general unhelpfulness...

xeina but sometime smoving is not a option for me to move would first mean finding somewhere cheaper that was suitable ie no stairs .Then finding money up front to move pay out then money to move .

then moving ds3 finally has a decent statement and decent special school and we are finally getting physio and ot regulary .So just moving not possiable would have to start all over again .And right now only help i get with ds is from my mum and stepdad and acouple of friends so moving would yank away any saftey next

I was not planning a life on benefits but my marriage failed and i was left with 4dc .And according to the goverment i am working at least 37 hrs a week . as they take my carers of Is .Just the same as if someone was earning a few quid each week cleaning etc
Yes we get ctx but then according to that department im not working so not wtc or childcare help on top of .

Mind its all a moot point as im currentley in hospital and about to undergo more spinal surgery.so imagine if i had moved away from here .would have meant my mum moving in even further from her house her giving up her job and not being able to pop in check on her elderley Mil.ould also mean her and my stepdad not seeing each other for what is likely to be a few months.

Sometimes its not as cut and dry as it seems

Does anyone know how the universal taxation system will benefit low earners ?
taking less tax from a crappy wage will hardly help at all

Tax credits are a disincentive to work, so many are just playing the system. The country can't afford it and personally I resent subsidising other people's lifestyle choices of choosing to work so few hours. If you want to be a SAHM or work two days a week totally fine but why should I have to pay to support it. Another problem with our benefits system is the fact that maintainence payments are not taken into account either.

Tax credit people are the most unhelpful,jobsworth,rude,insensitive bunch of people ever to grace the Earth.

I will not bore you with the details of my several long and convoluted conversations with them,when I rang to tell them my partner had died.Suffice to say they scored nul point for their customer services.

Bastards,its 10 months on and it still makes me seethe with anger

(prob a bit off topic but it feels better after that rant!!)

citybird

but not everyone is playin g It .I would love to work rather trhan be ds3 carer but normal childcare is not a option at all .And right now i am in no state to work even if could find childcare( major spinal surgery) .

As for maintainence yes maybe should be looked at .But hey ho mines £12 a month so not going to make a differance.

They discount maintainence when working whaT YOU Need to live on but they sure count my carers £54 a week when they do their sums

I don't think it is a disincentive to work in all cases :)

What happens if you wish to work more hours and there is nothing available ?

There will always be those on low wages ...those on high need them

Some workers will never get above a certain pay level ,it is not always through choice ...until the UK employs people over 50 at the same level as younger workers ...we will have a problem .

If one is laid off over a certain age, it is nearly impossible to find a high enough paying job (even with experience) 50 is young these days ...many in this age group have young children ...what happens in this situation ?

Life is not black & white , gaining employment with decent pay is an uphill battle :( for many ...

I am a SAHP. Dp works and we do not receive any tax credits. No problem with this. I knew we would lose them. I never went back to work as the cost of childcare would have made it not very cost effective. How are tax payers subsidising this lifestyle choice? However, my dp is probably subsidising others who choose to return to work. Although obviously not so much now.

Plus, it is worth remembering that if you are uneasy about the amount of tax $$$$ providing/paying for welfare/benefits ~it would be a good idea to see where the Government really spends your tax $$$$ :)

They are fucking lowest fucked up useless arsewipes in the whole fucking world!!

Hate the fuckers!!

8 years of fucked up hell!!! Go fuck yourselves is all I can spit through my gritted teeth!!

They really spend tax on welfare and benefits. How else do you think they arrive?

Citybird;

Firstly, becoming a LP was not a lifestyle choice! XH left us, and contributes £0, not even a christmas or birthday card in 5 years.

Being unable to get a job which pays more than the one I do currently is not a lifestyle choice, either. In fact, I consider myself very fortunate in finding a job which pays more than the NMW (7.05 p/h). I work 30 h/w, as that is the maximum hours I can do as a TA. If I got a job working 9-5, 37 and a half hours (official full-time) I would have to get a minimum wage job (as this is a rural area with few job prospects), a dead-end job, therefore earn no more money, but be significantly worse off emotionally and worse off financially due to extra childcare costs.

If I got a weekend/evening job, I would firstly be very tired and unable to care for DS, secondly, who would look after DS? More childcare costs ?(if possible at all, there are no ofsted registered weekend/evening childminders here). Plus, I would be unable to continue studying part-time for my degree, effectively trapping us into a life of poverty.

You are right, if I work more, I will be penalised by having to pay more tax, and have my TC reduced, so I will not actually be any better off. It is a disincentive. But, if you take the TC away, and I have to work more hours, as I have already explained, my childcare costs will go up, and my earnings will not cover the loss of income from losing TC.

The fact that maintenance payments aren't included in the calculations is a clear policy decision based on the balance of advantage of taking them into account: fathers (on the whole) would stopping paying them.

I have mentioned this before quite recently, as we lost £500 a month tax credits just before Christmas (they decided that DS didn't live here ). We are appealing but only so we don't have to pay back the money they rightly gave us in the first place. We have been run ragged by a system designed to help us.

Don't get me wrong, DH and I have been through financial hell, as it was a lot of money to lose, but we have coped and are getting by now. But our employment status hasn't changed, we had to adjust our lifestyle and there are times when it's still tough. I hope that the new tax system will alleviate the burden we've been under but I will not go back to claiming tax credits once we have won our appeal, it's not worth it.

I dread to think how I would have coped as a single parent having a large source of income taken away so quickly. I really sympathise with anyone going through this alone.

i had my review through today

im on benefit with three dcs and was getting approx £139 (weekly) from next wk they say i will get £159 (weekly) an INCREASE of £20 a week

dont mean to gloat or rub salt but i dont get it as everybody else is losing.it seems the workers are losing (not fair) and seem a large increase about £80 a month,anybody else found this

I have no idea how much or when we are getting our tax credits.... We have only £120 left for food to last us 3 weeks.. and then theres £450 rent plus council tax, car insurance,loan. They've really f*** us about with not paying us, underpaying us and then saying we have to wait for our renewal pack :( OH work and thank god has got a 2.5% pay rise, making him earn 12k a year! He hadn't had one is 2 years, crap money but its money!

Tax credits saved my life, and my sanity. Becaude of them, I worked full time in low paid jobs, and was then enabled to do my PGCE. I am now a teacher. Without tax credits, I would be a very low paid office admin assistant, despite my degree. When it worked, the system was fab, and I am very grateful, and hope other people benefit from the position I was in in the year 2000. Tax credits were a temporary release that made our current life possible.

And I am happy with the HUGE ammounts taken from my salary in deductions- because I hope others will benefit and become self sufficient, as I did.

Excuse typos, please!

I resent my taxes subsidising businesses who do not pay a living wage.

I resent my taxes subsidising landlords' inflated rents.

Both are done via the benefit system. And those least responsible for this misappropriation of my taxes are heartlessly scapegoated as 'benefit scroungers'

Not in my name. Raise the minimum wage and bring in Rent control.

We've gone from full to none, too, although I was expecting some kind of reduction as our 2nd child has just turned one so the baby element was due to stop.

What makes me cross is that Child Benefit continues for 2 more years. Why not stop that first, and leave tax credits as they are. The CB is universal so even the very wealthy benefit, while tax credits really do help those who need them. I guess that's the answer - the tories looking after their loyal high-earning supporters.

And while I agree that raising the income tax threshold and gradually cutting out tax credits appears to make sense, really the tax free allowance needs to be transferrable across families, other wise very low earners and stay at home parents don't benefit from it anyway.

The system is very unfairly weighted - agreed. The question is what can we do? I have been a lp with 2 children, been to uni whilst working and claiming TC in order to survive. Now have massive student debt (which although not 'fine' is what I signed up for) along with the opportunity to improve my working chances. Graduated with a 1st class honours degree, took over a maternity secondment at my place of work (due to finish 1st Oct which now as I have recently found out will coincide with maternity leave for me to have DC3 with new partner who has been out of work since the crash). Trying to afford for him to move in/get bigger place but halted by fact that my tc will decrease and he will lose JSA. I am not in a position to look for alternative work, other half cant find work that would actually allow us to have the same income or improve our situation and like many here I am left wondering exactly where this will end! Most likely with me being on mat leave and back to the start with a p/t poorly paid job and no opportunity to improve this for a while. TC may seem a luxury but without them I would not be able to feed my family. So what do we do? Rant over!

But if your DP has been out of work since the crash, we are talking what 2008 ? Why are you pregnant, you simply wouldn't have done that if you weren't getting tax credits. You cannot afford to live with your baby's father and yet you've gone ahead with a new baby.
That's the root of the problem, people doing what the hell they like knowing somebody else will not let them starve.

Cat well done, that's the path we're after taking; fingers crossed for a place! I'm an SEN specialist though.

TCs vanish in under two years anyway, they morph into part of UC which is why everything is being cut now. The only benefits supposed to be escaping that atm are Carer's Allowane and DLA / PIP becuase they are not means tested and serve a distinct group. I suppose ecaping UC will be unlikely becuase of the family we have but i;d dearly like to; not only is it a horrible thing to label those who will never work through choice as on the same benefit as those have no choice, it's just so very likely to go completely tits up whilst they try and restructure it all.

Emzlou - why can't your dp just take any job? It doesn't matter if it dorsnt pay masses to start with but it's just getting started

Doley you're right about over 50's; my friend is a carer for a child with very severe needs (GDD< ASD< VI) and does 10 hours a week for a main brand toy store; got her cards last week, shopping centre raising rents and it's cheaper to move to all online.

She knows she is unlikely to find anything else, she said as much (she's almost 50). Some people can- Dad went from managing 2000 to cleaning out meat scraping machines- but that ws before the big employment isues. And of course the focus, esp. locally where the problem is bigger even than elsewhere, is on youth unemployment (not that I am arguing) so in many cases same jobs allocated elsewhere very early on.