Applying for tax credits when my income from previous year is zero?

[Lindor2828]

Hoping someone can advise me on a quick question?

I'm a single parent and student just coming to the end of my degree. I'm looking on the tax credit calculator trying to estimate my income when I start my career.

Do I state that my income for the previous year is nil? Obviously as a student I've had no actual income, just a bursary, student finance etc.

The final amount of tax credits is a lot more if my previous income is nil. If I put my actual estimated income in this box it's less but obviously I havent earnt that yet.

Hope this makes sense, any advice appreciated

Fill in all forms etc with last year's income then when you get on the system, ie get a response from them, you ring up and say your circs and earnings have changed in this tax year.
that's what we did when ds1 was born as we'd never claimed before as a two jobs childless couple.
It was all sorted pretty quickly.

A few years back my friend said her bursary was counted as income for tax credits. Happy to be corrected though if she misunderstood something.

Ring up and explain it they will help