Have the government done away with child tax credits?!?

[Pop24]

Had a nightmare day trying to apply for universal credit which has just replaced what would have been child tax credit in our area. We have savings of more than 16,000 (hard earned and saved house deposit!) but our household income is low. Am I right in thinking that child tax wasn't dependant on savings just income?? Yet You can't claim UC with savings of more than 16k. So, my query is, does this effectively mean ctc no longer exists? And how is that fair when people in some areas would still qualify for it? Are we really being penalised because we happen to live where we do when if we lived in the county next door we would still be able to claim child tax credits. So frustrated and confused. And advise much appreciated!

Yes I think when you apply for UC you have to give details of bank accounts as with any means tested benefits now.

Banks will also report to HMRC

You have to declare the savings,or if found out through a suspicion in which case yes they can view bank records you will be prosecuted .
I can see grandparents bank accounts , children's accounts and biscuit tins bulging.

The problem is if people move it to grandparents bank accounts, that could quite easily cause problems for them if they should need to clim UC at any point !

Yes I was thinking of older better of grandparents.

Blinkyblink but if someone say has 4 children ranging from ages 16 to 5 and they are in the same job then they will get transitional protection till the youngest is 20 (assuming still in education after school) so that's 15 years of transitional protection.

*off

I think it will purely be the DWP that administer UC rather than HMRC.

I imagine when you apply online for UC you will need to give details of all bank accounts like you do with any means tested benefits now.

I have also read this week that under UC people will no longer be able to classed a s sick ( ie claiming the element of Uc that replaces Income related ESA) and be classed a s a carer. this will affect a lot of families who are both disabled and claim carers allowance for each other.

dream,
That is the CURRENT situation.
That will change.
No way will transitional protection be going on for very long. Few years at most

03/05/2017 20:04 lougle

It was never hidden. We were banging on about this for as long as I can remember before it came in and being told we were histrionic and needed to get a grip. It's what has been most frightening about these changes - they've all been in plain sight, but people are so confused about Tax Credits in the first place that they have no idea what the change to Universal Credit actually means until it is them or someone they know who can't get it, or loses huge amounts.

Basically this^

DWP will not be privy to interest being made on money in bank accounts.
HMRC will be!
That information collated by the HMRC is how the the DWP knows of someone is not being truthful about savings.

That's just awful re. Carers allowance. The main thing I find shocking is that serious cuts to benefits that will actually affect the most needy in our society have been completely sneaked through and no one will even realise they are losing those benefits until it's all to late. And I do agree that it seems its possible some will still get this payment protection for potentially years for benefits others Are blocked from. It's very depressing as conservitives are clearly going to be re elected and there will probably be even more cuts to come! And yes you have to. Give all bank account details and bank card numbers ect when you apply for UC. It would be possible to hide savings I suppose but certainly not advisable!

You can still both claim carers allowance, what you won't be able to claim is the disability and carer premiums within UC.

This has been taken from the benefits aware website....

How long will transitional protection last?

The Transitional Protection can continue until the UC award increases to the same amount as the benefits you were getting before you transferred on to UC or until you lose your entitlement to UC or until you have a significant change of circumstance. If you lose your entitlement to UC or have a significant change in circumstances (see below), you lose all of your Transitional Protection from then on.

So from this you could be on transitional protection for years. Unless they change the rules again which I doubt that they will.

pop24 They were not sneaked through. When the changes to tax credits were reversed in the budget a few years ago, it was mentioned they would apply to UC. Just because you did not read about it, does not mean it was sneaked through.

But caroldecker unless you were on benefits then you would not have read the new budget rules on universal credit. People generally don't bother to read the budget do they? Unless there are elements that directly affect them, hence why we have this stinking government in the first place. People have no idea what they are actually implementing. As I've said several times, it IS an underhand change as technically we are still entitled to CTC. When I tried to apply for child tax credit in the first place last week I had to fill in an eligibility questionnaire, result: eligible. I can find no info on any gov pages that state in black and white that criteria will change for CTC other than the 2 child rule. The entire point of tax law is that it creates the same rules for all citizens and (isn't meant to be) open for interpretation. How can we still be eligible by the UK governments criteria yet blocked from applying in our area for no reason other than its now migrated to universal credit? Would you not call that underhand and unfair? If you change the rules on a tax credit everyone needs to be updated to that same rules at the same time. Changes of this magnitude should have been reported and highlighted. The reported line was very much 'If you are on benefits you won't be worse off' and 'you will be better off in work' It was never reported that new claimants were blocked from applying if they didn't meet certain criteria. I know it was widely reported that CTC would only apply to 2 children but that's about it. It's a criticism of the opposition and journalism in this country that people have no idea of these changes. four different dwp/UC staff I spoke to had no idea on how/if the eligibility for CTC had actually changed when an area moves to UC. They aim to make things complex for everyone, even their own staff, as to disguise most of the changes. And also this idea of gradually changing area by area is clearly an attempt to diffuse the uproar when people discover the cuts that have been made. Let's not forget that CTC was available to many quite comfortably off families (and still is depending on where you live) who may even have been inclined to vote Tory in the upcoming elections!

There wouldn't be this problem if tax credits had taken savings into account in the first place. What a ridiculous concept that people with £20k in the bank should be given child tax credits to top up wages and ' keep children out of poverty', which is the mantra which the government have been churning out to justify tax credits for years.
Between myself and my dh we pay a quite a bit of of tax, we have hardly any savings in the bank and claim no tax credits ( haven't done for years since the children were tiny, so 15 years ago).
I do understand the issue of saving for a home, but not just if you happen to have a spare £20k knocking around in the bank.

Yep I do agree on principal. I suppose they were not a benefit as such but effectively a slight tax rebate for having children, but that does seem a bit odd when extended to quite well off people. We would never have claimed if my OH had remained on his previous salary even through we would have been entitled to as we didn't need the extra money but now we could really do with that extra help I wish we had put in a claim earlier! Like you I feel we have both paid well into the system in the past, not claimed when we could have done, and now we could really do with that extra ( fairly small in the grand scheme of things) rebate we've been let down.

They are not a tax rebate as people get them who had never paid a penny in tax in their lives.
Many people who get them earn under the tax threshold so don't pay tax, and for others it is just the fact that they have kids that get them the tax credits.
The name is very misleading. They are a benefit.
There is so much wrong with tax credits. I think in principal Uc will be a much better system in many ways when the teething problems are ironed out.
Under Uc people will be able to up update their earnings monthly meaning that they will hopefully avoid the horrendous problems that people had with tax credits with earning more and ending up with overpayments of thousands of pounds.
Families will no longer be paid to have a sahp for years on end until their children leave education, they will be expected to seek work ( obvious exceptions for carers and ill/ disabled).

babyroobs when you say...

Families will no longer be paid to have a sahp for years on end until their children leave education, they will be expected to seek work

Does that mean both parents need to be working to get child tax credits under UC? I don't understand.