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.

@chocolatecoveredraisons unfortunately although kind of correct actually if one parent earns over 50k then you have to pay extra tax and over 60k the tax is higher than the child benefit so people don't claim.
It also has to be a self assessment tax claim my work colleague was recently stung for tax payment of £2000 as she had a pay rise and never received any letter!

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

The problem is you can never be certain! Despite being told by all the agencies that it's right, if someone decides down the line that it's wrong and THEY made a mistake, they'll demand it back immediately, possibly with interest.

Maybe someone should campaign for a Statute of Limitations on advice from government agencies, eg after three years they can't come back at you if you went with their advice, maybe then they could concentrate on the real crooks in the system

Your post is disingenuous and I think you were misguided to even post with that title as it just a leads to benefit bashing.

As pp on the thread has explained it because you just went back to work and hmrc are basing it on your last year's income.

Noone on benefit receives a staggering amount unless its been paid wrongly.

Some on old style benefits with lots of disabilities are comfortable before they pay out the amounts demanded to have a decent standard of living whilst being disabled and some part time workers on tax credits may be comfortable.

Noone receives staggering amounts.

flirtygirl absolutely. The mess that is universal credit exists because of benefit bashing. It's a really unhelpful title.

This often happens in the first year of work, when people were on income-related benefits. They're not taxable income, so don't count for tax credits.

You get the full child elements, plus pro-rata working element, and less than half a year's earnings to offset it. Next year, the full £24k will be earned, so payments will be a lot less.

Mind you, I've also known them to forget to pro-rata the working element when someone has returned to work, so it's worth checking that they've done this (or possibly not: I've had overpayments ruled irrecoverable because of pro-rata cock-ups).

Mind you, I've also known them to forget to pro-rata the working element when someone has returned to work,

They are not respondie for calculating pro rata figure.
They asked how many hours I worked a week and how much I earned.

Is that what you meant?

For the love of god put it into savings and don’t spend it

We ended up with a £6,000 overpayment of tax credits that they demanded back immediately, despite us telling them of our change of circumstances. It should have been adjusted to new earnings but it was still based on old earnings. We had four DC in nursery at the time so assumed it was right based on what they told us

Ended up skint having to pay it back when they reluctantly agreed to allow us to spread the overpayment over a year. So we lost all tax credits and had to find several hundred extra to pay back on top.

This was nearly a decade ago so I hope the system is better now!

I don't see how the Benefits Agency can ask for it back if they've made a mistake

They are like the Inland Revenue - they can demand what they like, when they like.

It's a bugger.

It's good that you plan to bank it. IME of helping a family member sort out their tax credits (and I poured over every detail meticulously and had lots of conversation with them on family members behalf), they're terrible at dealing with big changes of income part way through the year, and it can take another tax year after that for it to really wash through. And if you don't end up with an overpayment you'll have a useful savings cushion!

For every year we've been awarded high tax credits they're always claimed back on renewal, they take it from my new award. I always report all changes correctly, it's a frustrating system. Sure I've paid them back at least 60% of what I've ever had from them! Currently repaying last year's at £100 per week from my current award. Im used to it now!

This is partly why Universal credit has been brought in ( amongst many other reasons). UC is based more on real time information so should reduce the amount of overpayments, it's calculated on earnings monthly rather than annually so for people with variable income may work out better.

Babyroobs , People with variable income lose out the most under UC due to the minimum income floor and the fact that you lose a certain amount of payments just for being paid weekly, fortnightly or 4 weekly.

There are very few people who UC is better for and it was purposely structured to be like this.

It's leading to high eviction rates as now when one benefit is messed up, they are all messed up. This and the 6 weeks with no money.

the minimum income floor is only for self employed people.

They are not respondie for calculating pro rata figure.
They asked how many hours I worked a week and how much I earned.

It's not what I meant, no.

There are "elements" involved in the calculation. The working element, for example, is just under £2k a year. They add together all the elements, deduct them from your income and then deduct 41% of what's left.

When someone has only worked for part of the year, they sometimes omit to pro rata the elements, so allow the whole £2k-ish of working element when they should only allow a proportion of it. I've seen it happen a couple of times (used to be a benefits adviser).

For every year we've been awarded high tax credits they're always claimed back on renewal, they take it from my new award. I always report all changes correctly, it's a frustrating system.

People forget that any tax credit award is provisional and will be adjusted in the subsequent tax year. They will only reassess mid-year if the change is significant, eg a big rise or fall in income.

In that sense, UC is better because it is based on actual income, but it's a nightmare in other ways, eg when you get a 5-week month your income can plummet the following month.

The monthly calculations are a logistical nightmare - and my income doesn't fluctuate. Five months in a row my payment has been reduced to zero because our of human error, as well as systemic issues how UC interacts with HMRC data. At time of payment I spend several days on phone until someone understands the error and eventually corrects it.

I'm going through it at the moment. Several hundred short.

Then council tax reduction has been recalculated several times.

It's simply too onerous an accounting task to recalculate on a "live" basis. Opportunity every month for simple errors.

and the fact that you lose a certain amount of payments just for being paid weekly, fortnightly or 4 weekly.

Employees whose annual pay isn't divided into 12 equal monthly chunks because they aren't paid monthly actually get more UC than those whose is. This is because under UC rules they gain more in the months where there earnings are below average than they lose in months where they are above average.

Sounds a bit off to me. I get £75pw WTC and £65pw CTC and my salary is under £10k a year! I work 20 hours a week.

Babyroobs have you read any of the numerous threads on here, posts on SM, articles in msm, reports by financial, benefits and poverty experts on what a total nightmare UC is for many? It's absolutely not coping with varying monthly incomes which was supposedly one of the main reasons it was brought in! It can't even cope with the fact that people paid calendar monthly the SAME amount occasionally get what appears to be 2 payments in a calendar month because of calendar oddities like the different number of days each month.

It can't even cope with the fact that people paid calendar monthly the SAME amount occasionally get what appears to be 2 payments in a calendar month because of calendar oddities like the different number of days each month.

What I think will happen, if the recipient doesn't complain and get some sort of manual adjustment, is that they'll get no payment for the month with two payments, and a bigger than usual payment for the month with no payments, and overall they'll have more income than if it hadn't happened.

Not so ..Happened to me. I got £0 one month and extra next month - only only.a bit extra because there is a maximum. So over all I was over £200+ down. Given the amounts that is a big difference.

It's absolutely not coping with varying monthly incomes which was supposedly one of the main reasons it was brought in!

This isn't an example of it not coping unless you can show that at any point in time the recipients total of income and salary (since their claim started) was lower than it would have been if the scenario hadn't happened.

Not so

Can you post numbers to illustrate? I'm interested in the details, in case my understanding is wrong.

Can't remember exactl figures but close to this...

My claim before deductions is £800. £250 is taken off because of earnings. So i get £550. My earnings were double counted and I get £50 UC, then the next month no earnings so I get £800, no deductions.Total across two months £850. Instead of £1100.

I hope I've recalled this right.