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.

I am going to look into rules to see if I can work out how that happened, my understanding must be too simplistic. (My first thought is, if your normal pay causes a deduction of £250, surely an extra pay-cheque should at worst have lost you another £250, taking you down to £300?)

In a previous thread where the OP was complaining that 4-weekly pay meant a reduction, I concluded she was wrong. I think I was right then, but possibly I've been wrong since then in extrapolating that result and thinking that variable pay would almost always work to your advantage.

OK I think I can see how this can happen.

Someone could have £409 monthly work allowance current rates. If income shifts to a different month, then they will lose 63%*£409 = £258 UC from the extra income.

If they receive no income at all in the following month, £409 work allowance is lost forever, and the £258 loss becomes permanent.

This does not apply for a 4-weekly paid person, because they still earn enough in the low income month to use up all their work allowance.

It's because they go by earnings over the tax year so this tax year you won't have earnt 24k, it will be 12k plus whatever you earnt in the last 6 months.

You also need to check they are the correct figures and not just last years.

It should drop in April but again you need to make sure they change it to use your current earnings as usually they take and use the year before and you have to call and physically tell them to use this years projected to avoid overpayments.

From bitter experience even if they say you are entitled to it bank it.
The cut off for one child is 26k, not sure for more.

The threshold for WTC is around 17k and for child tax credits for 2 kids would be around £32k.

That makes sense Firesuit. And it's not a one off. It can happen any bank holiday month. And is bound to hit loads of people at Christmas when lots of workplaces pay early. My work pays a week early.