Working tax credit?

[Rose138]

Hello all,

I am a teacher and my husband is a plasterer. We have a 7 month old son. I will be returning to work part time instead of my previous full time, from September.

Someone mentioned to me recently that we should apply for working tax credit.

My new annual salary will be £15,400.

My husband from April 2014-April 2015 earned £19,600.

Both of the above are before tax ect deductions.

Would we qualify for working tax credit? My husband wouldn't be able to provide pay slips if needed but does have an accountant so for each year has a breakdown of earnings, tax paid ect.

We've never applied for anything other than child benefit when our son was born so any advice would be really helpful please. Thank you!

Working tax credit there are couple of diff tax credit elements - one helps towards childcare cost I think for one child the cutoff is 26k the other is to support low salaries I think about 16k or so. No to both for you with that combined salary I think.

You may qualify for the childcare element of working tax credit if you meet the criteria. I Think the cut off is around £40k ( I may be wrong). You would both need to be working 16 hours or more and be using Nursery / childminder who is Ofsted registered. Your joint income is way too high for child tax creidts. If you did qualify for the childcare elmeent I don't think you would get a lot towards childcre costs but every little helps.

Just to add - child tax credits are different to working tax credits, you can get child tax crdits even if you don't work, the only criteris is having kids and an income that falls below the thresholds ( the thresholds go up with each child).
For one child the threshold is £26k so you wouldn't qualify for child tax credits on your joint income.
Working tax credits are dependent on you working and includes the childcare element. People on very low household incomes can be topped up by working tax credits, or if you pay childcare you may be entitled to help. There are conditions on the number of hours worked to get working tax credits. For the childcare element you both need to be working 16 hours and for a lone parent it is 16 hours also.

That's all really helpful-thank you!