HOW do they work out Tax Credits?

[Heartmum2Jamie]

I have just called the Tac credits helpline to check on our renewal claim which has been going on for months. The woman has just confirmed the final awards.....which has gone DOWN slightly. I don't work and my dh is bringing home less than ever. We are both stunned and I just want to cry, we are soooooo broke. £20 every 4 weeks may not seem a big deal to most, but this is going to make a huge differnce to us.

If anyone has any idea how they come to these decisions, can you please shed some light for me, I am truely stumped.

i dont know how they work it out either

we were getting paid 401 at the beginning of august and after we sent the renewal forms back they dropped our money down by 200 quid even though im not working and my hubbie brings home a basic wage

yet i have heard of other couples who earn more than us having a back dated payments of 1200 quid

??????? work that one out?

www.entitledto.co.uk/
This is a good site to check out what you are entitled to

i had something similar it took them 3-4 months to renew my claim I was so broke as I am currently on my own, they took £500 off from last years award and never got to the bottom of it I must of called 100 times and went to the local tax office and it could not be explained there, I've had to re-mortgage and borrow from my disabled mum disability allowance, its just crap what is the point of going to work and owning a home . Try an appointment with your local tax office it works for some, get them to liase with the tax credits office , they got my payments going again at least.

I did find a complicated formula which they use. I will try & dig it out in the morning.

What I found most helpful was to go to the Tax credits website & click 'am I entitled'. You don't have to follow it through to a claim but you can input your relevant information (salary etc.) & get an answer. You can also tweak it to see how it changes the final figures. For example I wanted to know the effect of changing income as I am going to be going back to work part time, and childcare so I could decide whether to buy vouchers from my employer or claim tax credits on it instead.

I'll try & dig out the links in the morning.