How can I find out what tax credits we will receive next year? Ant advice welcomed!

[ssd]

I know we will receive less, but I need to find out how much less. Is there an online calculator somewhere that will show me what we'll get as from when the changes to the threshold comes in?

Also ds turns 18 in May and we'll stop getting his child benefit from round about then, I'm not sure exactly when. So when this stops, and we only claim for ds2, do we get £20 a week or £13, like we are getting for ds2 just now?

If anyone could help it would be great, I'd scoured the internet and not found any answers and dont want to phone tax credits as I find them hopeless unhelpful.

ssd - Sorry , just re-read your post and see you said you had relaised CB would stop. As I said earlier it should carry on until the end of August I think so that is a good few months after he turns 18.

thanks babyroobs, yes knew the child benefit cut was coming, but on top of the tax credits cut its a cruel double whammy I didnt expect.

ssd- Yes I really feel for you. On top of losing the child benefit and tax credits for your eldest child and then the tax credit cut that everyone will get you will be looking at a big loss. I think the threshold for one child will be about £20.5k assuming no disabilitiesand childcare costs.

on dh's wage we would be under the threshold. I really think we'd be better off with me giving up work, but I'd never do that, I cant stand not working when everyone else is and wandering around going for coffee or to the library with the old folks....what I'm trying to do is earn more, but getting there is bloody hard....before having the dc's I got every job I went for and had a great cv, now due to lack of childcare and having to leave jobs when they were younger my cv is pretty crap, min wage jobs galore and the youngest is 12 so still not quite ready to go full time and leave him all summer alone (we have no family nearby).

aarrgghh!!

Could you consider trying to get into something like care work where they will sometimes train you on the job? Then you could do bank/ agency shifts to suit yourself and either fit around your other job or perhaps do something like a couple of split nightshifts a week to fit around your dh's work? This is how we have got by for the past 15 years with 4 kids. I have always worked mostly nights and now they are older ( youngest is 10), I work just nights in the school holidays and get a few hours sleep and they are fine to be downstairs on their own. There will always be a need for care workers with an ageing population. I know it is low paid but can be flexible avoiding the need to pay for childcare. To be honest most of the mums I know are doing this kind of work working weekends and ights around their partners to get by. Hope you manage to work something out.

Thanks for thinking of me, but care work is the only work I couldn't do! I just really couldnt do it, I've seen it advertised round here and they always seem to be looking for workers, but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do personel care for my mum when I looked after her, she had carers in every day and they all said to me "you should do this" meaning do the job, but I couldn't

I admire anyone who does do it!

We are going to be down about £50 pw. I am in the fortunate position of being able to calculate how the changes will affect us and I have already started planning the best that we can. We don't get any housing or council tax benefit so it will be a direct cut for us.
I am outraged that the tax credit office haven't sent letters out giving everyone a projection of exactly how these changes will affect their individual tax credits. It also concerns me that the tax credit award notice doesn't reflect the changes for payments from April 2016 - does this mean that people won't realise how much they are losing until they renew in June/ July and have already been overpaid by several months (meaning even lower 4 weekly tax credits payments than needs be if the new amount was spread equally over the year).
I am a carer to a child with a very severe disability and despite the Tories promise that disabled families will be protected from the cuts I can assure you that they are not protected from this cut. My husband works full time and prior to being a carer I also worked full time and I would love to return to work but currently that isn't possible.
I also agree with a previous PP that there hasn't been the same level of outrage at this cut that we saw over the cuts to child benefit for 'higher earners'. Many of us who were not affected by the child benefit cuts were fully against them and I would like to see greater support against the tax credit cuts.

Iamnotloobrushphbic (love the username) i'm in the same boat. Carer to disabled DS, DH works full time. We're down about £50/ week.

I wrote to my mp on monday to request that they raise the question to get HMRC to send out revised calcs for next years payments asap. I scaned this years renewal pack (dated 24th July) with next years payments from April on it showing payments continuing at a similar rate to now. I did a calc and showed the difference between what HMRC have informed me and what my own calculations say.

Maybe if you get a moment you could send an email to your MP too and we'll get some action even if its just a better supply if information.

Ok, so I'm going to be affected by these cuts too, by what looks like 1.5k on a 12k income and I am certainly no Tory mouthpiece but the problem with WTC is that they effectively subsidise employers to be able to pay shit wages. In an ideal world, if you are in work you absolutely shouldn't have to be subsidised by the government. But I do think the government is doing this the wrong way, too hard and too fast with nothing to help those affected. Employers are not going to raise wages in line with this cut unless forced. My scenario would be that employers should have to make up the difference in wage packets.

Thanks for the info, lougle. It's so annoying knowing things are going to change but not knowing by how much. There should be more information available. I have pm'd you.

Hi, I think we will lose all of ours, it won't put us in desperate problems so not too worried, will just mean no school dinners or clubs for the children. So feel a bit cheeky asking but
Could anyone better at maths check it for me.
We earn £24,783 between us, 2 children no childcare.

enb I don't think simply raising wages to make up the difference is a solution though. If wages rise then so does production / service overhead costs and the price of buying goods / using services rises accordingly meaning that the additional pay earned is needed to cover the same amount of basic living costs as before. Raising minimum wage significntly will also lead to job cuts in some areas or reduced hours so people will just be worse off. In m ideal world nobody who works full time would need tax credits but currently they do and I don't see that simply raising wages across the board is going to solve the problem.

misformum good advice. I will write to my MP as I thnk it is a really important issue.

spider I calculate that your tax credits will fall to £838 per year.

Based on this calculation:

Basic element: 1960
Couple element 2010
Family element 545
30 hour element 810
Child element 2780
Child element 2780

Total tax credits = 10885

Income 24783
Minus threshold of 3850 = 20933 excess income
Excess income after 48% taper rate = 10047

10085-10047= 838

So your annual entitlement will be £838 or £16.11 per week.

Thank you, that is quite a drop.
We can absorb it but the children won't be able to have school dinners.
I really feel for the people who can't absorb the cut.

A lot of people I know claiming tax creidts will be able to absorb the cut. The ones that do very part time hours at my workplace are looking to pick up extra hours to make up the shortfall. I guess in many areas there just won't be extra work available though.

There is a quick reference guide here which tells you how much the maximum loss will be:

www.litrg.org.uk/News/2015/150917-How-will-tax-cuts-2016-affect-you

Cleo

I'm concerned I admit. I'm holding out hope that my housing benefit will increase.

Currently I am on 10k a year working 25 hours, paying £30 a week childcare for two children as a single parent, one of which gets the disabled element as he gets mid rate care DLA.

I currently pay £50 of my £95 a week rent (and pay all my council tax at £97 a month) so I'm hoping some of the loss is cushioned here for a while.

I'm already studying for a degree to increase my income - I'm 3 years in with 3 years to go with the OU. I can't up my hours as I have no other childcare and Ive struggled with needing time off due to DS1s disability anyway (hence claiming DLA to help make up my loss of earnings when it's unpaid leave)

surely there should be some help for those of us who will have nothing to offset these cuts? we will be losing £50 per week and child benefit for ds, which I had anticipated as being our only loss..now we have the tc cuts on top of this I am terrified at what we'll face. we wont get housing benefit or council tax benefit and we wont get free school meals.

what will we do if we cant absorb losing £65 a week from an already frugal lifestyle?

I'm terrified. I have tried getting more hours and was told no, dh's job is on the line too..

ssd - What will your elder child be doing when you lose the tax credits and CB for him? Is he planning on going to Uni or getting a job. If he gets a job then he would be able to contribute to the household if still living at home which would offset some of the loss.

hopefully going to uni..

No help there then, and I guess you will lose out again as the maintainence grants for students from low income families ( the ones that didn't have to be paid back )are being slashed also from next year.

oh God I hadnt realised that

is that just in England though? we are in Scotland

Sorry , thought you would know as that was announced in the same budget as the tax credit cuts. Sorry to be the bearer of even worse news. I am pretty sure it comes into play from next Sept 2016, I may be wrong.

Aah quite possibly different in Scotland, you get all the Uni fees free there don't you? At least your ds won't be saddled with thousands of pounds of student debt.