Question about working tax credits....help!

[Unlikelyamazonian]

Does anyone know what happens to my working tax credits if I start to earn more that 6 and a half thousand a year - isn't that some kind of significant figure (I seem to remember it is). Will the tax credits I receive go down or up? I think down but I am not sure. Tax credits people want to know my estimated earnings from april 08 to april 09...I am trying to work them out but it's complicated by renting out another property; because interest rates have dropped so much the mortgage is now much smaller on it (tracker mortgage luckily) so I now get to keep more from the rent that I did when I arrnaged tax credits a year agio. My actual working earnings amount to a crap 5 grand for the year. But with rent on top it's about ten grand a year.

Do I include the rent in my 'earnings' and if so, will my working tax credits go down because I have therefore 'earned' more than 6 and a half k??
It would be a disaster if they did.
Anyone know how it works? Not sure what to do.

rent is other income rather than earnings, but will be included in your income.
Don't know about the 6.5k, people recommend "entitledto" website on here to check stuff.

Go see your lone parent advisor at the job centre if you need help with figures, or CAB.

It will go down if your income goes up. However I think they base this years money on last years income, so you might find that you stay the same this year, and then it goes down the year after when your income from rent may well be lower! It's a really confusing system, so definitely get some help from someone in the know.

Remember you can only claim as an expense the interest part of your mortgage repayment. So your additional income won't be that much surely? You can up your other costs this year to bring the income back down to the usual level. There are several expenses you can claim back against your rental income. As long as it's not a capital expense you should be fine. Perhaps this is the year to get it redecorated, have the chimney swept, or similar.

Yes the money you get for 09/10 is based on 08/09 so if you earned more in that year than previous years then it may go down.
If your overall earnings were only £10k though you should still be getting a fair bit of tax credits. When I was working (for tax credits ) I was earning more than £10k but was on almost full CTC and WTC as a lone parent.
If you like I can do a calculation for you..I don't trust the calculator on the website. The amount of people I've had complaining because the calculator told them one figure and it was wildly out.

Thanks for your replies. I didn't realise the credits were based on last year's income. My tax return for april 2008 shows I earned 20K but the following month I was made redundant and my h left us. I set myself up as freelance the week after he left but I suppose my credits were based on that 20k in that case...In fact when he left that I was so traumatised I couldn't work at all for 3 months and lived on my redundancy money (does that mean I shouldn't have been claiming work credits? I did declare everything - redundancy, rent etc, but could not predict my freelance 'earnings' to them and said zero), then I earned sporadically from september - about a thousand pounds in all. Then I started cleaning last month and now earn 150 or so a week.

The rent income has gone up as interest rates have gone down. I get to keep about 400 pounds of the rent now. I still have a mortgage on the house I live in. H gives me no maintenance and isn't around at all.

Maybe based on the above I might get more tax credits from April this year? Thank god I have the rent money or I would have gone seriously under. I don't know how people survive. It's a big struggle. I only eat one meal a day and never go out, buy clothes or anything I don't need and it's still a struggle. (very sorry to have a moan as it might sound like I am doing ok. But bricks and mortar don't buy food..and although the second property has been on market since h buggered off, it hasn't sold and now I don't want it to sell as i am getting more from the rent iyswim)

I should think my overall earnings from april 08 to april 09, including rent, will be about ten grand.

Anyone make sense of all that? I'm so bloody tired all the time.
xx

I get 450 a month total working tax and child credits. I have one child now 16 months. Does that sound like it's based on last year's 20k earnings??

I would think yes, it is probably based on last years 20k, I know as a lone parent, on 10k I received around 160.00 a week and then 30.00 a week for childcare costs, so hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised this year, good luck.

did you do a new claim when he left?
The claim you had together will end on the date you separated and you need to do a new, individual claim. This can only be backdated a certain period (3mo?) so if you didn't do one and are receiving tax credits on your joint claim then you could have problems.

No we weren't claiming anything when he was here: I was a sahm and he was earning. I had no income after the sat he left because I had no earnings and he just flew abroad and pays me nothing. I don't even know where he is. So it was a totally new claim and i have never claimed anything before. But thank god for it now.

good, was just a bit concerned because if it was an old joint claim you wouldn't be entitled to it and they wouldn't back-date the new claim very far.