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?

I don't know what to make of the calculators. The one on the Unison website said we'd lose over two thousand but yet the entitled to one that a pp upthread suggested reckons we won't be affected by the cuts.

So I'm none the wiser - not helpful!

I don't like these cuts. Yes tax credits do need reforming but not so that people are going to struggle financially. It's so unbearably stressful.

Mrs - I thought everyone was going to be affected unless you have no income so are on income support or Jodb seekers.

I am all for the child benefit and tax credit cap. I think limiting it to 2 or 3 children is a good idea. It should be for any children born 12 months from now and exemptions made for things like multiples.

I am also all for, more importantly, cutting pensioners benefits. They make up the majority of the benefit bill.

Baby I don't know.

I do know I'm finding it all very worrying how we'll manage if we are affected.

Mrs - i found the same.

The entitled to website said that nothing would change but the unison website said that i will be 1700 pounds worse off next year.

If they cut pensioner benefits, people ( those who are able) will just keep working longer meaning less jobs for the younger people !

does it only effect those working and claiming wtc,what about people that are unemployed but claiming just ctc,will they be effected ??

If we are agreed high housing costs are the problem then BTL subsidies and the HB bill should have been the first casualty. What little steps have been made are being phased in over YEARS.

Christmas - from what i have read i think those who are unemployed will be unaffected. I read that they are cutting how much you can earn before they start reducing your tax credit. So today someone can earn 6000 before the amount of tax credits you get will be reduced. So for every 100 over the 6000 they reduce tax credits by 10 pounds. Next year that same person can only earn about 3400 before the reductions start.

Someone who is unemployed doesnt have an income.

Together - doesn't help does it.

I Can't increase my hours. There simply isn't any. If it was as simple as doing just that I would as I'm in a position to now.

A lot of people are in that situation as well.

thanks together

I think if you are unemployed and just claiming CTC then you will only be affected if your total benefits exceed the new lower benefit cap.

The tax credit cuts will affect the employed not the unemployed. How crazy is that.

I agree Dixie. Childcare is a nightmare.

My child goes to a playscheme centre. Because the time i start work is in the time that they class as morning (i work afternoons) i have to pay for a full day when my child only needs a maximum of an hour of that. I also only get about a third of my childcare paid for. I am wasting money on childcare that i dont need.

I am not affected by these particular cuts as I claim income support but I just wanted to say that the view some people have of "single mothers" is quite upsetting.

No one has a crystal ball and you never know what life has in store for you.

No one chooses to enter an abusive relationship, no one chooses to be raped, no one chooses to have a disabled child. It's just life. And those of us who find ourselves struggling with these are just doing our best for our families.

Pyjama - I thought most lone parentson low incomes got most of their childcare costs paid through tax credits, unless this has changed recently?

You can get up to 70% of a set amount of your childcare paid for you via TC.

I cannot recall the precise upper limit for 1 child but for 2+ children it's £300 pw so the max anybody can get towards CC even if they had 4 children is 210pw obviously the % they pay is means tested. £300 is also the top amount any other benefit allows to be taken into consideration (not paid for just considered as essential costs)

Now I don't know about others on this thread but I'm a full time working mother of several children (lone parent) in the intrests of fairness I'm only going to consider the toddlers because the older children all have complex disabilities so it would be grossly unfair to consider the costs of their CC.

Each day that I have both in registered paid for childcare costs me £120 this is made up of normal hour rates and antisocial hours, should I have the, in childcare on a sat or Sunday that more than doubles. Weekday £120 weekend £265 if I'm on a course or working to far from home and have to pay for over night care that's a minimum of £230.

The woman that serves me most mornings uses the same childminder so is paying the same fees as me. Her drop off is half an hour earlier than mine but collection is also half an hour earlier than mine (much earlier if I'm doing silly hours or away).

She earns £57.60 each day she works unless she is lucky enough to be given overtime the max she can earn is 86.40 as they will not let her work longer than 12 hours (obviously this would mean her CC cost was also increased, Given that she is also a lone parent (widow) with no family support how on earth can she afford to work more, it just gets to a point when she wouldn't even be able to afford the CC because the sums just do not work out without even factoring in being able to eat.
She work hard some days she cannot even stand up straight because she's stood up all day and it kills her back she has LD's so retraining may be problematic for her. I'm not entirely sure what else she is meant to do

The usual single mother bashing, eh? There but for the grace of god.

You can't get insurance against your husband changing into a total wanker and running off with his secretary/your best friend/his best friend.

You can work all the hours god sends and still people will blame you - I am a full time teacher, I mark exam papers in the summer and I tutor via skype when work is available....and still there are people happy to tell me it's my fault and I should 'take responsibility'. I am not sure what else I can do other than never sleep....I am still eligible for tax credits, despite a so-called professional salary, and without them would struggle. We will manage - but we won't get a holiday this year as I will need to work summer school to make the books balance.

It's amazing how you never see any kind of ire directed at the non-paying other parent, or the paying but can't be arsed to be supportive other parent, and even more amazing how many people are happy to be with men ('cos it's mainly men) who don't support their children and how those same people, friends and families will say 'well, she earns a good salary so she can pay for the children'. Never any consideration for how a single parent gets to work for 9am in location C, 6 miles away from the eldest child's school at B which doesn't open till 8:30am and which is located a mile in the opposite direction of nursery A where the youngest child needs to be and which doesn't open till 8:30am either. Remembering that the bus goes round the houses taking 40 minutes and only comes every 30 minutes, at 8:30am so your choice is leaving your child to put themselves in childcare (which the school won't allow you to do) or getting on the bus and being late anyway.

And to those suggesting I should 'take responsibility for my actions'...well, yes, I do. Every day. I support my children to the best of my abilities. I am not uneducated, I didn't get pregnant and then marry, I knew my ex very well before marrying (3 years), didn't have children for 6 years with him....he changed. It happens. He developed a god complex and now believes he shouldn't have to do anything he doesn't want to. He wasn't always like that - I couldn't have predicted it.

I am a single parent, not a second class citizen or something you wiped off your shoe. Shit happened. I deal with it. You have no fucking right to judge me but that won't stop you.

My aunt's partner is a CAB volunteer and he kindly sat me down last week and went through my finances and told me the tax credits cuts wouldn't affect me, since I'm a carer on income support. The main way the cuts will affect me is the fact that the benefits levels have been frozen for four years, which I'm sure will be tough but not as sudden as a huge cut in tax credits. I don't have any earned income and my DS is disabled so childcare is not an option unfortunately. The benefit cap doesn't apply to us as DS is on DLA.

I do have friends who work part time and they are fretting about how much they might lose. It seems so unfair and impossible to plan for, when all the online calculators are so different and most people won't be able to get advice from CAB etc as those services have been cut as well.

Cannotlogin - well said, no one can predict the future. You sound amazing

My ex, ds dad earns an ok salary, he's never contributed a penny to ds upbringing, so all of the tax credits I've claimed I will view as his contribution.

Pyjama - How come you can't get anything through CSA/ CMS if he earns a decent salary?

From another thread.

What happens is this:
A claimant reports that they're not eligible at this time for x y z.
Agency stops that benefit immediately.
Claimant is then eligible for benefit again and claims.
Depending on which benefit, are told it takes a MINIMUM of 6 weeks for that payment to be reinstated.
Reality is it can take several MONTHS for a payment to be received by a claimant.
There's no way a claimant can speed up the claim.
Claimants that are working in this situation can then find themselves in extreme financial difficulty, no money to get to work, feed themselves so they don't get too ill to work etc

CSA/CMS are (less) useful than an ashtray on a motorbike hth.