The amount of benefit I am getting in staggeringly high...

[Workreturner]

AIBU to be flabbergasted.

So I have just returned to work. Previously I received JSA and CTC and child benefit. Totalled approximate best part of £900.

I have returned to work. It’s well paid. 24 hours a week for £24k a year. I immediately updated local job benefits office and HMRC.

I have just been online on my HMRC account and my jaw hit the floor.

I won’t be receiving JSA but I will be receiving £308 in WTC and £417 in CTC. Plus £137 child benefit. Pretty much exactly the same as when I wasn’t in work.
Plus I will get help towards child care costs.

It seems an awful lot of money on top of a decent salary.

I’m a single mother of two primary children.

Does this seem right to you or those in similar situations tell me it’s wrong. I would like to avoid the scenario whereby I have to repay.

April 2018-2019 I will have worked for 6 months

Yes
When I give salary I always give gross. I should have clarified

I never received housing benefit

If you use the calculator on entitledto.co.uk but take the 2.5k income increase disregard off you should be able to work it out.

Drastically is the basic answer. Do the numbers now because in April your payments will probably only (automatically) modestly drop then when the system churns out new calculations you'll get an overpayment notification and either have to pay back or receive nothing the rest of the year.

Be very careful as tax credit work in your previous years salary, which on USA wouldn’t t have been much.
You may end up owning quite a lot back

Be very careful. I'm currently repaying a huge debt just to mistakes made by Tax credits - and yes they did have the right information off me.

You're better off just banking it in a savings account then when they ask for it back you can hand it over. Robbing &9$39*&$

Be careful, even if they tell you a dozen times that it's right they can come back in the future and demand immediate repayment of their error. This happened re tax with our son in law, he queried his tax code after a promotion, was told it was all correct, then four years later they demanded a huge sum back. It seems that whoever makes the mistake, they win.

Plus also your child care cost will make up part of you tax credit claim

I’m going to ring tomorrow.
And then whatever the response, I’m just going to bank it. If I need to repay back at end of tax year, it won’t be any skin off my nose as in my mind it’s not mine until end of tax year and I’ve got renewal letter

Many thanks for guidance

No I input zero for childcare.

Waiting until she’s ofsted registered

When I was a single parent to 2 I was earning around £17500. I got approx £415 in ctc and £20 wtc so I would definitely agree yours is wrong!

Thanks gnome
As I sag, banking!!

Also when you do your checks - don't assume that HMRC Income Tax/NI are the same as HMRC Tax Credits. Also make sure that your Childcare Costs are being calculated correctly.

And one thing that might make your payments appear so "staggering" is that Child Maintenance isn't taken into account if you receive that (or more than the minimum) too.

Good Luck OP.

Yes CM not included. Thank goodness

They base tax credits on last year income. This happened to us, started putting loads in dh's salary despite him earning £35k because they ignored the "this is our new salary" letter. Had to get mp involved as multiple phone calls made no difference - eventually they asked for £6k back!

Helped friends with 2 kids (family of four) with their claim and they got £700 for the year on £22k but they didn't claim for childcare as she stays home

Crikey! I'm quite new to benefits. I take home £780 per month and I get £500 universal credit. I think my gross salary is just under £10k. I only work part time, searching for full time. Although at the moment I can't find any ofsted registered childcare for before/after school.

Single parent, two children.

That's a hell of a lot of money in benefits. Didn't know people can receive that much.

Work pays. Who knew?!

Not always, unfortunately. If you earn more but still earn little enough to qualify for benefits, you only get to keep 15p out of every extra £1 you earn. Possibly even less, because of Council Tax, travel costs and child care costs. I would always advocate working if you feel you can, but honestly it isn't always worth it from a financial point of view.

I know someone who rents privately and went from working full-time 38 hours per week to 5 hours per day during term time only and found herself worse off by just £20 per month.

There's good advice here OP - and you are very wise not to let yourself get used to spending the money!

I don’t trust them fuckers. So many times we’ve thought the money they were paying us were high so we ring up they assure us that it’s correct then come the next renewal they want money back for overpayment. But when they owed me £3000 the found a loop hole so they didn’t have to pay me.

@Workreturner
I had a very similar situation when I finished uni.

Essentially went from no income as none of my uni finance was counted towards tax credits allowance to a wage of around £21,000. I got full WTC and CTC from finishing uni in late September till the next tax year. Because as far as tax credits were concerned, from finishing uni till the tax year, I wasn’t earning £21000, I was earning approx £11500. I never had to pay a penny back, but the next calculation in the new tax year, taking into account the full £21000 meant very minimal CTC and WTC.

I was also sceptical like you, so saved the money. And then when I was happy they didn’t want it back I used it towards my house purchase costs/deposit

My husband and I earned around 24k together last year and got around 600 ctc per month. Now he's a student (so earning nothing) and my part time wage brings in 6k a year and we get £700 ctc a month. It's bonkers!

That's a hell of a lot of money in benefits. Didn't know people can receive that much

They don’t read the thread

Don't spend it until you KNOW for CERTAIN that this is right.

Something similar happened to a friend of mine. She was convinced it was incorrect an kept on at the benefits office to check, meanwhile she put the money into a separate account (like you, she had a comfortable salary to manage on).

Just as well she did - after two years they asked for it back because she had been overpaid and wasn't actually entitled to much at all.

I'm not saying that it's the same with you, but it might be.

If it was universal credit OP would be getting very little. About £50 a month. I knew it was less but i didn't realise it was such a huge difference.