Child Tax Credit?

[xxnamxx]

Hiya,

I am looking for someone with some information regarding Child Tax credits, pretty much when did you apply for them and how does it work?

My wife and I applied for Child Tax credits while she was on Maternity leave looking after our Daughter, my wife was on Statutory Maternity pay so not very good income and I am working Pro-Rata in a school 37 hours a week.

My wife before pregnancy was working fulltime 37 hours.

When we got the Child Tax Credits form we filled it out and the confusing bit was that they asked us for our income for the Tax year we were both full time working in which said we are not entitled to any child care but of course our pay was ok in that tax year but we are needing help for this tax year while my wife is on maternity!

So pretty much how does anyone go about this? We have had to just wait until the 2017/2018 tax year and now we will apply again as obviously the 2016/2017 was the year we were down on money and we now know what income we go that year.

We also need to know if we can get anything now as my wife has now finished her maternity and is back into a part-time job so low on money again, are we entitled to anything? I mean come on we have been working all our lives paying into the system since we have been 16 and seem to get no help at all when we need it.

We are contemplating childcare so my wife and get more hours but this comes at quite a cost as well.

Help someone please lay it out straight for me as no one else will help!

P.S the tax year we had to put down on the form we applied for was the 2015/2016 tax year.

It's better to give them a ring and ask them, we were in a similar situation and when I rang them and asked them they said we were entitled as our income had dropped and they could the figures for this current tax year :)

Yes if you call them they will help you, if you income has dropped quite considerably they will ask for your income for the year 2016/2017

Sounds like speaking to them will be best then if i can get through, thanks.

Do you know then if they backpay for the last tax year?

You apply with the earning figures that they ask for. If your joint income was too high then you will be given a nil award. You then ring them with your estimated ( lower) earnings and ask them to revise your award based on that, or wait until the end of the tax year and you might get a lump sum paid to you. I don't understand why you put earning figures for 2105/16 down ? If it is a recent application you have made for 2017/ 18 tax year then you would need to put down 2016/17 figures. You can deduct £100 form smp for a maximum of 39 weeks so that your figures will be lower.

As a rough guide- with one child and no childcare costs the threshold is around £26k so if you earn over that between you you won't get anything. However if you are paying childcare then the threshold is higher and you may get help with childcare costs as long as you both work 16+ hours a week and your childcare provider is ofsted registered.

Thanks, The reason I put down 2015/2016 earnings was because I was filling it out in Feb 2017 so we were still in the 2016/2017 tax year.
We are now looking into it again albeit a bit later than the start of the Tax year.

Sounds like we need to get paying childcare before we claim then as we were planning childcare for the start of next year.

P.s what if we are now starting childcare but we were not paying for childcare in the last tax year in which where they ask for our earnings?

From what you are saying I'm not really sure whether you have an active claim r not but you can just add childcare details. You also need to make sure you are not in a Universal credit area now as that is taking over from tax credits in many areas.

We don't have any active claims, the only claim we have put in was in Feb 2017 and it got declined because it was relating to tax year 2015/2016. We are now going to start a new claim as you have to put the last tax year being in a new tax year I can now put 2016/2017 earnings which is lower due to statutory maternity pay for some of it. We are not in a universal credit area as of yet.

Well that went reasonably well, the HMRC adviser was brilliant and cannot fault her. I have inputted all my info now but for some reason however they work it out i am only entitled to a small one off claim this month then i have to wait until April next year and they are going to start payments of around £20 a week to us, thanks all.