What help is available?

[Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme]

My friend, and I swear this is not me, I'm not trolling, is worried about her finances. She told me today that she doesn't want to go back to work once her maternity pay runs out. However this will leave her and her dp on the breadline.

Apparently he earns about £18k a year. She says they're not entitled to any tax credits. I'm pretty sure that's wrong because my dh earns twice that and we used to get them, until he tipped into the higher tax bracket and they were stopped.

They rent privately, about £600 a month. Would they be able to claim tax credit, income support or anything like that?

Not sure about tax credits or housing benefit, but they will definitely not qualify for Income Support with her partner's earnings being so 'high'. Only those with partner working pt in a minimum wage job (or not working at all) would get help, and even then there would have to be a second qualifying condition e.g. She was a carer for a disabled person etc.
As I say, not the expert on tax credits but I think they should at least get Child Tax credit.

Thanks. That's what I thought. I think she needs to look into it a bit more but she says with a new baby she hasn't got the time! I think it's worth chasing.

Thanks, will pass it on.

She will get child tax credits for sure probably some working tax and maybe a small amount of hb.

We have similar household income and get around £200 per month tax credits, plus £80 every 4 weeks child benefit. No housing benefit as they take tax credits into consideration and that puts our income over the threshold. They won't get working tax credits, income is too high for that.

www.turn2us.org.uk is the link to the benefits checker. Takes minutes. The 'new baby, no time' thing sounds like an excuse really, especially as there's two of them. If there's any extra money to be had and they are living on the breadline, most people are very motivated to do something about it. Do they lack confidence? Do they think benefits are a bad thing? Could be worth finding the real objection.

They may get tax credits but it is usually worked out on joint income from last tax year so on that basis they may not be. the threshold with one child is £26 k so if their income for the tax year 2013-2014 will be £18k + whatever she has already earnt until she went on mat leave + mat pay until april 2014- if all that comes to more than £26k they may not get anything in the way of tax credits until April 2014 when their estimated income will be below the threshold if she doesn't return to work. Hope that makes sense.

Just to add, they can deduct I think £100 per week for ?34 weeks off their income as smp does not count , HMRC would be able to advise on that.

Thanks Babyroobs I'll see if I can talk to her. I know what you mean, my dh's money tipped into the next bracket up and we lost all our entitlements for that year even though everything else went up in price and we really could have done with the help.