Does anyone know about tax credit awards? Does mine look right?

[TheBrilloPad]

Ok, think I have taken out anything identifying.

All this tax credits stuff has made me take a look at my award. DH & I both work. Him full time, self employed, earning £22K pa. Me part time employed (21 hours PW) earning £16K pa.

We have two kids under 3, and pay £1K a month in childcare.

So why does it say we don't get anything for "working tax credits" or the "childcare element" bit?? We only get the "child tax credits" bit. Is that right? Surely, as we work, we should be getting the working tax/childcare elements bit instead, no?

I don't understand how it works though, so if anyone knowledgeable could take a look that would be great!xx

Thanks Lougle, I reckon I can have a go at working it out with your example now you've broken it down more.

I ended up owing several thousand and have been worried about getting back into that situation so now they've told me I'm due 700 a mth (I'm definitely not) and this is after me writing with my exact figures for last year and this yr. I plan to save half of every payment so it's ready to hand back when they realise they've screwed up

Following

Louge, you've just provided the clearest explanation I've read anywhere, I now understand it a lot better!

Lougle, sorry

How much are you allowed in savings before a claim is rejected? Asking here as loads of knowledge if that's ok op?

It's not the amount of savings, it's how much interest you get, which for most people isn't much at the moment. When I filled in the forms I think it said you had to declare any interest over £300 a year but it may have changed.

There's no limit to savings, you just need to declare any interest over £300 a year. However with universal credit ( which is taking over from tax credits), you will not be able to claim at all if you have savings over 16k.

this is a worked example taken from .gov from 2016. It is a detailed version of what lougle set out above.

www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/tax-credits-technical-manual/tctm07appx2

What was the outcome OP?

Some really helpful posters on this thread! Could I hijack a moment and ask if it's likely a CMS payment (just starting from ex husband) will be assessed as an increase to my income?

I m now a lone parent and ex has up until now just made monthly contributions jointly agreed between ourselves. He decided he wanted to formalise payments through CMS now. Do I have to add that to my total income I now tell tax credit people? It would add about 6000k a year to what I currently earn. Someone told me they dont take child maintenance into account but I m scared I m going to have an overpayment