This £20 a week increase to working tax credit... Anyone know any more details about it yet?

[SerfNTerf]

As I'm sure that it was meant to be effective from April 6th, but my tax credits online payment schedule for the next 6 weeks isn't showing any increase

As a self employed parent whose income has collapsed it would be useful right now!

Was it a dream?
I havn't heard this at all.

It sounds a bit too much.

Wasn't it Universal Credit? In Sunak's announcement about an extra £1k a year per claimant?

Why respond if you don’t know?

It’s the basic element of WTC that’s gone up by £20 a week so you’d only get that much if you currently receive the full amount of WTC. The more you earn, the less WTC you get and therefore the less of this extra you’ll get.

So it really depends on how much of the basic element of WTC you get
www.gov.uk/government/news/increase-to-working-tax-credits-what-this-means

I saw this and had it confirmed by in web chat yesterday. My next payment is tomorrow (normally Friday but they are paying early due to the Easter holiday). So when they say from 6th April...it depends when you personally get paid.

No it was not a dream

Rishi Sunak announced that the basic element of Working Tax Credit would rise by something £1045 a year, and Universal Credit the same.

But it was meant to start this week and the tax credits online portal don't seem to know anything about it!

I will check online banking tomorrow.

@nolovelost oh ok thank you that's interesting.

If you log in via government gateway you can see the upcoming payment schedule for your tax credits. I can see the payments coming to me up until late May and there's no increase been added so I wonder when it will actually happen! My income from self employment (as a cleaner) has gone down about 65% and I think will go down further so an extra £20 a week will be a massive help to us! I had been doing stuff like shopping etc rather than cleaning for my elderly clients but there are so many volunteer services offering that now that most of them are using those rather than keeping me on.

Someone on another thread yesterday said payment changes would show from the 9th

I have checked online where it shows the next few weeks payments, and it does show a £20 increase from tomorrow's payment. Plus a little extra increase on both ctc and wtc as I believe these have gone up a slightly with the new tax year.

Oh I have a few friends who are counting on the increase,like you, I hope it shows up in their next payment & that yours shows up too. It's not a huge amount if you've lost your income, but it all helps. My closest friend who this applies to has already received his increased housing benefit (but he had to apply for that,rather than it just change as it's supposed to with WTC.

I'll let you know what he says about the WTC when I speak to him later.

serf i assume you will estimate your income for this tax year going off new circumstances so even if you werent previously entitled to full WTC you may now be

Yes I will do when I do my renewal! I'm hoping it picks up again fairly fast once lockdown is over tbh as it's not that my clients have let me go due to financial issues, it's more about social distancing and having a cleaner in and out of multiple homes is both risky and unnecessary. Plus of course I have no childcare anyway now! Fingers crossed...

Several people have told me I should still be charging them but I wouldn't dream of it.

serf do you know you can log in now and change your estimated for coming year?

My child tax credit has gone up by about £80 a month from this month, just had a look online

CTC has not been increased, only WTC (and UC)
www.gov.uk/government/news/increase-to-working-tax-credits-what-this-means

If your ctc has gone up thats possibly due to them taking back an overpayment last year?

My payments have gone up like that but i knew about it when i last had a letter from them so nothing to do with cv19

www.gov.uk/government/news/increase-to-working-tax-credits-what-this-means

Here you go.

Wonder why my increase then? It's every month going forward and I've not submitted any changes

Yes, dont wait for a renewal, do it online, I change my childcare costs a couple of days before each school holiday then set it back to £0 after the holiday.

Online portal doesn’t show any change for me even though I’ve altered my income, just have to wait and see I suppose

fluckity have you previously had an overpayment?

Not that I'm aware of

The four year freeze to benefit payments has ended now. This is unrelated to coronavirus and was announced earlier in the year. Many people will see an increase on their ctc payments as well as other benefits this tax year.

Fingers crossed its right then and they don't ask for it back!