To ask about child tax credit cuts.

[yellowbird11]

Is it inevitable and if so will it affect everyone? what a massive worry to all of you who are going to be affected.My DD works 16 hours a week and has 1 child. She'd love to do more hours as her child is at school but isn't able to. Can anyone give me any idea how much she'll lose, and when? I'm so worried for her because I know without these tax credits they'll be barely able to eat and keep warm. How can these Tory bs sleep at night?

The 16 rule was its downfall, if it had been 35/40 per adult it wouldn't have been as abused and the cuts wouldn't have been needed.

It wasn't 35/40 because of the people working part time who can't get extra hours. My employer pays me for 25 hours, they can't afford to pay me for any more than that, such is the life of an NHS employee when budgets are squeezed. A friend who is a school secretary has had her hours cut for the same reason, she's part time but would like to be full time, worse still she's on split shifts which are a nightmare for child care.

God, I am really sorry Starlight, massively shite few days and I was taking out my anger on this thread!
Clearly to angry to read posts properly!

BoffinMum - agree entirely re employer/employee relations going up the spout. The tories have, from Thatcher onwards, pursued the model of a service sector, casualised, de-unionised workforce - they hated heavy industry because it involved union negotiations and collective agreements etc - the lie that has been sold to us is that if we opt out of all that then we can negotiate for ourselves and we're all so 'flexible ' and isn't it grand. Well, now we are where we are, with zero hours and short hours contracts and a downward pressure on wages due to loss of union power , and now the bastards want to penalise the working poor for, well, being poor. When they are poor because of a 35-year long assault on workers' rights that have ensured the majority of those working now can say nothing to their employer other than 'how high?'

Q what would happen to your household if you were to suddenly lose £200 a month?

A If you insist on an answer - nothing.

Would the answer be the same if the loss was 7.23% of your income Summer?

Jellybean I doubt in your example the person would get council tax help as tax credits are taken as income for housing benefit and council tax support.
They would also not get free school meals as you cannot get this whilst also receiving working tax

No problem thisisnachocheese ..I think this thread is a bad place to read when on a bad day...some people with no empathy on this thread.Hope your week improves

Tax revenues in the uk last year were £646bn
Expenditure was £736bn
The deficit was £90bn

In the seven years since the financial crisis the uk national debt has more than doubled to £900bn

Welfare spending is £214bn and increasing.

That threatens the NHS, schools and defence.

The new jobs created roughly equates to the number of immigrants.

You can only raise so much from taxation and we are near that limit. People just find a way around it.

I think we are looking at inflation, increasing taxes and unpredictable energy, food and water prices as well as paying the price for living well beyond our means.

I really hope that I am completely wrong and that everything will turn out fine.

We are now relying on the Chinese to fund our new infrastructure projects and pandering to Arab states with dubious human rights issues so they will invest in the UK, jeopardising our national security in order to pay for our current lifestyle. I for one have grave fears for our dcs future in this country.

'When asked about the best way to mitigate the reforms, Bell said: “Tax cuts and the living wage cannot compensate for these tax credit changes. They are not an option. The answer to tax credits is tax credits.”

www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/26/experts-urge-tories-to-phase-in-planned-reform-of-tax-credit-system

I think that the issue with tax credits is that no one understands how they work, well maybe those who claim them do but no one else does. A couple of people have asked me how I'd be affected and I was they both knew that dh and I earn well and are comfortably off. I'm not pretending to understand either but it's presented as something 'working families' get rather than as a means for the low paid to be able to afford food. As a result voters don't really get it.

But the idea that Labour were a realistic choice at the last election is also laughable.

That's very true toby

I've seen a lot of threads on here where a woman is pregnant and contemplating perhaps whether to leave an abusive relationship or whether she can cope alone and several posters often reassure her, 'You'll get tax credits!' without knowing the first thing about her income.

What about those of us who earn just above the proposed "'Living Wage". I'm pretty sure that my wages aren't going to go up when those on minimum wage goes up! I'm a teaching assistant. I work 28 paid hours a week .The council/school says we cannot be paid for more or there will have to be job losses. So I regularly do unpaid hours. I am not going to benefit from the Living Wage increase and yet will still lose the child tax credits that help keep us afloat. My husband works for Tesco. We are in an area where you hang onto a job for dear life.Our joint take-home comes to about £22,000. I can't do another job in school holidays , otherwise when would I ever get a break? I'm not allowed to take holiday in term-time! Nor can I anyway because I still have a child at school. I don't consider myself a scrounger - I have worked almost constantly since leaving school , plus 3 periods of maternity leave. I'm 51 now, 5 years to go on the mortgage...I just don't think we are going to make it...

I do love playing with the benefits calculator and seeing just how bizarre the whole thing is. I'm currently sitting around on IS with a two year old, but I'm looking for work. Today I applied for a job, 24 hours a week, £8.60 an hour. If I get this job (fat chance), then the cuts in April would leave me a whole tenner a week worse off - thirty quid or so knocked off tax credits, twenty quid increase in housing benefit. Good thing I'm not a homeowner. I'd be able to cope with it - it'd still be a hundred quid a week more than I'm on now.

However, there is one easy way I could recoup the money lost to the cuts: move an unemployed partner in. That'd push my post-cut household income up £22 higher than a pre-cuts single claim.

It's bonkers. And it's going to put women on low wages seeking to escape useless partners in a bit of a pickle.

Agree tax credits are very complicated to work out.

When my ex h left I was awarded tax credits.

In a single week I received 8 letters all telling me different things.
Later I was told within the space of one month that;
A I had been paid the correct amount
B- I had not been paid enough
C- I had been paid too much.

I had no idea whatso ever as to what I should have received.

Since then they have stopped paying me child tax credits for my 16 year old who is in compulsory education, their mistake.

Told me to ring back another time when I tried to inform them of an increase in my wages.

Tried to say I was on a lower wage than I am, I insisted that if anything they put my wage higher than it is so as to avoid me receiving an overpayment.

I know several people who have been overpaid and the tax man has demanded the money be paid straight back.

I also have a friend who had all her tax credits stopped because they thought she was lying about having a child. Despite her sending off the bitprth certificate, a signed letter from her doctor and the school confirming in writing that thus child did exist. Her ex husband also phoned them to confirm that the child lives with their mother, the tax credits office told him they didn't believe it!

Without wishing to be contentious, isn't this an indication the system has become bloated and unmanageable?

However, there is one easy way I could recoup the money lost to the cuts: move an unemployed partner in. That'd push my post-cut household income up £22 higher than a pre-cuts single claim.

if i understand you by moving a boyfriend in you will be £22 better of,but you wouldnt be an adult weekly will cost more than £22 to feed,clothes,travel etc so it's a non argument if i read you correct

ilove, yes, I'd have to find one who doesn't eat or need any heating in order to be any better off. It's just making me scratch my head a bit, that's all: I thought they were trying to make it so that no one could have a SAHP due to tax credits. Clearly that plan isn't quite working. And it's an interesting reversal of the usual scrounger narrative about supposedly single mothers with partners who technically live elsewhere so they can claim more.

The major thing that bothers me though, is, hypothetical partner or not, if I get the job I applied for, cutting my tax credits would save the government very little - a tenner a week. Seems an awful lot of effort for far too little gain, with a whole load of stress and added administration thrown in. Particularly when the cuts are meant to save £4.4 billion, and they said on the news tonight that Osbourne's on course to be running a surplus of £10 billion by 2020. So... couldn't we just skip the cuts and have a surplus of £5.6 billion instead?

I am just a normal person.

If my monthly income reduced by £200pcm I could walk a bus stop or two to save fares, I could cancel sky, mobile, landline, etc, I could give up coffees, odd glass of wine. If I were working 16 or 17 hours a week I could take on extra work even if it was babysitting, cleaning. Ironing, etc.

I really appreciate some of the problem but I don't understand all of it.

I work 35-40 hours pw, sometimes more. I have always had to. Lots and lots of families work full time with no money for extras. I do not comprehend why they should subsidise similar lifestyles for those who choose not to work full time.

There was a lady on the radio this morning who was complaining she worked 17 hours pw and would lose a lot of money due to tax credits. I couldn't help thinking she could perhaps work a little bit longer to earn the extra money herself rather than being given it. Whenever I wanted more money I had to work harder for it. I don't really comprehend why I should work very hard so others don't have to.

I sympathise with those who want to work but can't due to illness. I have issues with those who could work for the extra but don't want to because the state pays them not to.

I have not been able to find an indigenous cleaner for 15 years. It's rather shocking really.

Leaving true but I have in effect had to reclaim for my dc he cannot work,the government has prevented this,he has had to stay in education by law yet they took money off me because they in effect needed proof of their policy!

This is their error and the cost is theirs to administer.
All of the errors they have made are their errors and the costs incurred are because of their incompetence.
It's not the claimants fault if once they have given the facts and filled out endless pages of detailed information, the department makes cock ups.

The answer is not to punish working people for their incompetence.

My friend I spoke of received nothing until they sorted out their cock up. I imagine the fact that her mp had to get involved speeded up their rectification.

I'm intrigued to know where all these companies are that are desperate to offer full time contracted hours.

I know of far more employees who have to sign zero hour contracts and who are only offered part time ( varying but always under 35) hours.

Perhaps it's a regional thing.

I agree with the cuts in tax credits. I know several people personally who abuse them. My niece's husband works for the local authority and they have 3DCs. He refuses all offers of overtime and call out time because he and she say....why the hell should they when they can get tax credits instead. I have a good friend who is a nurse...she is single and works for 16hours a week as a practice nurse. They want her to do 25 hours but she has refused because it would affect her tax credits. I have another friend who worked full time in a care home on the minimum wage.....until her daughter told her she could claim tax credits if she dropped her hours....guess what she now works 16 hours and the rest of us pay her...in tax credits.....I could go on. These are widely abused and I don't see why the rest of us should subsidise people who refuse to do a full time job or have kids they can't afford.

I don't know know anyone who takes the piss out of tax credits.

Wrt overtime, you gain more assuming you are on NMW or above than you lose, so them refusing overtime is stupidity at best.

Why should single parents and those who want to work full time but cannot find a job with the right hours be punished because of a few piss takers?

FinglesMcStingles

agree its a daft system,in effect where childcare is concerned they will pay a nursery/cm etc to look after your child at more expense than what it would cost the in income support for you to be at home with your chils

the whole system is madness

an impartial view of what DC said about child tax credits (I still have not found any source that he promised not to cut WTC)
fullfact.org/factcheck/economy/child_tax_credit_cut_promise-46421
I think he was woolly with his words as I think he was referring to child benefit (which indeed has not been cut)
and longjumping I do think you make a good point - I don't think it is well known how much some part time workers are awarded in tax credits (wish they would call it wage top-up or low income benefit) as it has absolutely nothing to do with how much tax anyone has paid (in fact most of them pay no tax)

Nobody pays no tay mollie - no income tax perhaps, but lots of other taxes. Those on very low incomes actually pay a higher proportion of their income than anyone else in tax, most of it indirect (VAT, as one example).