tax credits and maternity leave confusion.

[staryeyed]

I am having such trouble working out if the estimated income I gave to tax credits is correct or not. I seem to come up with different figures each time. Im sure as I gave our estimated income I overestimated but on looking at it now I seem to have underestimated- I think I possibly missed a pay rise as last years figures were also skewed by a different ML. Im not sure of my figures. I have saved some CTC aside in case the award is wrong but should I say now that I underestimated my wages or shall I just wait until the end of the year and sort it out then?

If I was you I would ring the helpline and see what they say. The whole system is very confusing. Good luck

If it's only out by a few hundred then wait until the end of the year to reconcile the difference. If it's out by several thousands then contact them. The tax credit awards are not all that sensitive to small differences in income.

I think I've worked it out and its about £1k difference.

If it's only £1000 then the effect on your award will be quite low, if anything at all. There are online CTC calculators where you could enter both incomes and see what I mean. If you've not spent every last penny you should be fine holding off until April and letting them make any adjustments then. If

I have run the figures through the calculator many times using entitledto and the HMRC calculator but they give different results which are also very different to our actual award (our actual award is more) using the same information given to them.

If your £1000 takes you over a particular threshold (I think there's one at about £23,000) then it can skew the award. Are the differences between the calculated award (s) and the actual award very big?

yes by about £1500 ours is more complicated because we have a child with a disability on higher rate care element of DLA.

If the risk is £1500 then you've either got to keep that amount back until the next assessment or contact them now to see if they want to amend the award until the end of the year. If you can afford to have the £1500 sitting somewhere and gathering interest, that might be the best option. If you can't do that, you might as well get any adjustments done sooner rather than later.

I have it but I hate not knowing if it is available to spend or not. Do you know where I can get a detailed check on my TC to see if they are actually correct?