Hi. Hope someone can help me out here as I'm really quite confused. Say as a couple you earn too much to be entitled to tax credits as I know they generally work on the previous year's income. Then you have another child so you are on maternity leave, being paid smp, so basically not bringing much money in, can you claim tax credits based on your estimated income for the current tax year? Rather than the previous one when you were earning quite considerably more? Or would it kick in the following year? I'm assuming they must be able to factor it in for the current year, otherwise all the money would be laid to you in the next year when you could quite easily have returned to work?! Hope this makes sense!!! Tia x