Does this amount of tax credits sound correct?

[WTFthatsweird]

DH £16,500 per year
Me £3,500 per year (maternity leave)

£35 a week tax credits

(3 kids no childcare currently).

It seems like a really poxy amount. I checked that all the info they had was correct.
My friend who's husband earns more gets a lot more tax credits than us.

We are struggling financially - big time.

Just to check - they are aware you’re on maternity leave? Statutory maternity pay is deducted from your income for tax credits purposes if I remember rightly.

WTF you'll be better off if you rent from the council or a housing association. If you rent privately, you'll also be subject to local housing allowance so they won't allow your full rent in the calculation. For example, we rent from a HA and our rent is 673, so our calculation includes that full amount. However, if we rented privately they'd only use LHA for our calculation so the amount would be around 390. That means your total allowance is lower and so less to begin with before they start deducting. PM if you want to talk about it I'm happy to help. There's a lot of misinformation about UC, that everyone is fucked once they're on it and you'll always be worse off but it's just not true.

We rent privately. And I think I need to read through that again before I understand it.

Yes they know I'm on maternity leave. I called them a few weeks ago to double check that.

OP I’m no help with if your amount is correct or not but if you have time today register and make a tax credits account online, it will make your life sooo much easier seeing what payments and info they have for you. On there you can see what payments are, look at future payments, change your income etc and it literally will adjust your payments overnight rather than have to wait for a letter through the post or sit on hold for ages to talk to someone.
Is a bit of a pain to set up but is well worth it to see where you are at x

www.gov.uk/manage-your-tax-credits

@Mitebiteatnite I think all us private renters would be better of under council 😂OP wouldn't qualify for social housing and if they did there'd be a long wait.

When I was classed as homeless with two children living in a refuge there was a three year wait for a council property. That was only last year. Ended up having to private rent. I don't know how people get away with charging extortionate rent!

If you ring again ask them to view all the pages of your claim. My dh was made redundant but 2 years later they still had him as working ft! Operative said some staff just read the first page!

She would qualify in most areas, but would have very low priority. There's also a bit of misinformation that you have to be on a low income to qualify. When we were offered our house, we had been on the waiting list for just under 6 months and had a pre-tax income of just under 35,000. We moved because of DHs work, and were given priority because he had to travel 2 hours each way to get there. We were also pushed to the very top of the list because we were both in work, as our HA had too many houses with unemployed people living in and they wanted to 'diversify the neighbourhood'.

It's not always the lowest paid/poorest people who benefit from social housing etc. We are very much classed as a middle income family, and have found a lot of things work in our favour!

I think Mite was saying if I was renting from the council then I would be better off going down the UC route.

Not that I'd be better of renting a council property.

That's how I read it.

Oh. I was wrong.

I'm in Brighton, the is forever long. And we are happy where we are. I wouldn't even consider trying for a council place.

@Mitebiteatnite oh I see. In my area it's done on a priority basis on homelessness and families being severely overcrowded in their current homes. Even us being homeless there was still a 3 year wait an we were stuck out of area due to DV :(

You should be on the £100 a week mark for your current income.
Yes that's what the calculator says.

But this is the figure from April to April, we are now in July so it works out less because there are less month left in this year

My DH was on £27k per year, I was a SAHM of 3 and we got £96 a week.

Or more because we haven't been getting enough yet....?

You ring them up and give them an estimated figure for this year's earnings. Only issue is that if your estimate is wrong you may end up being overpaid

*And when I'm back at work at the end of the year and have money again they will increase the tax credits based on this year?
When we don't need it as much?!

That doesn't make any sense at all*

It's the big flaw with tax credits. Because they're assessed annually, they're always based on estimate income. Unless HMRC have been told otherwise, they use last year's income to forecast this year's. When they send out the review paperwork, it's important to check that last year's figures are right and that this year's estmate is plausible.

The reviews have generally gone out by now, and now's the time to correct this year's underestimate, OP. When you get next year's review, if your income has gone, or will go, up, make sure you let them know, or you'll be overpaid.

Are you renting, and do you get housing benefit? If so, make sure you tell HB that your circumstances have changed, as your HB will go up.

You can't make a new HB claim now, but you may be entitled to help with your housing costs if you claim UC. UC doesn't have the problems that TCs have, because it's based on actual income. (It does, of course, have other problems!)

I'd run those figures through one of the online benefit calculators as you may be better off on UC.

The 5 week problem is if you get paid every 4 weeks. If you get paid monthly then it won’t affect you.

It can do, if your normal payday is near the start date of your monthly assessment period. You can still get paid twice in one calendar month if you're paid early because your normal pay day falls on a weekend or bank holiday.

It's easy for employers to prevent this by showing the payment date as the date you're normally paid, not the date you're actually paid, and HMRC have now issued guidance to this effect.

Self employment and UC is much more complex so it's worth going to citizens advice to check.

I'm a benefit adviser, and it's really not. Self-employed people can submit their figures online monthly so that UC reflects their actual income. Some prefer it, as it means a lot less work at year end, and they can work out their tax liability as they go, and put some aside for their tax bill.

Doesn't sound right to me. We bring in around £1400/1800 a month and get anyway from £500/190ish a month. That's on universal credit though and we are renting. With 2 kids. We have tripled checked it right and it is. So I don't see how you can be getting so little have you applied for housing benefit and council tax reduction?

For example, we rent from a HA and our rent is 673, so our calculation includes that full amount. However, if we rented privately they'd only use LHA for our calculation so the amount would be around 390.

The proportion of HA rents that are above LHA rates is tiny: less than 10% nationally, so it's very rare.

Are you sure you're comparing to the LHA for the right-sized property? £390 pcm is very low for a family-sized home, even Liverpool and Tyneside have an LHA around £500 for a 3-bed property.

@Namechangesareus yes of course, I'm not complaining, I'm just explaining how it works.