Tax credits (again)

[McDougal]

Just wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar.

Due to DH's increased income last year, our tax credits were due to be reduced at the beginning of the new tax year. We know that his income will be around £2.5k less this year as well as me not bringing any money in due to being a full time student, so updated figures for this tax year online last week.

What's confused me is that our payments have changed (so changes must have been processed) but only gone up by a pound or so a week despite our income dropping by over £4K. I was at least expecting somewhere similar to the entitled to calculator but this is off by over £80 a month.

Does anyone know if it's likely to change once our renewal forms go in?

Thanks

I thought there was a disregard of a couple of thousand so not sure how that works out?

Yes, I think it's £2.5k disregard, but that doesn't seem to have made much of a difference when updating income during the tax year so unsure why it would affect it this time?

I feel like I will never understand tax credits

I got £50 less this month than usual. I assumed it was due to the new tax year. Don't we have to renew our claims soon?

I think renewals start getting sent out in April but we don't usually receive ours until late May. I guess I'll just have to suck it up and hope for an increase after renewal!

Yes that's what I'm hoping for too. I've given up trying to make sense of tax credits though.

I think of them as a mysterious bonus, and use them for the emergency fund. I've no clue either, however much I read up!

Are you sure it wasn't an end of tax year amount that is a one off and then your payments will reduce from now on ? Do you check your amounts online - it would tell you if it was a one off amount.

Sorry to jump in on this thread but l don't really understand how TC "work". STBXH left June last year so l started claiming then.

As of yesterday my payments have dropped. I checked my original award paperwork and they said that my salary for 18/19 will be xxx amount. How do they come to that conclusion as it won't be!

MyBoys- If they have estimated your salary wrongly and based the amounts on that then you need to ring them and correct them.

Babyroobs, there was one one off payment which was the first payment of the new tax year but my new weekly payment is lower and is around £20 per week lower than we used to get on the same income (year before last). Online account now has amount weekly and we've lost WTC too

This is what has happened to me but my award paperwork does say that it would do that when the new tax year commenced. My paperwork is assuming l will have a payrise (not sure why they would assume this) and so my payments have been adjusted accordingly.

What does your paperwork state?

The last paperwork I received was early January when we realised that we needed to update our 17/18 income and it does state that payments will go down (but doesn't say based on what income, but I might be being a bit blind).

What I don't understand is that I've updated our income for 18/19 resulting in not much difference in payments despite predicted earnings of over £4K less.

Does that make sense? I'm confusing myself now!

Will you get a p60? If so l would give them the figures off of that for 17/18. I would wait for that to then "tick through" and get the paperwork through. Check that is correct. Then update 18/19 again

You'll be able to compare figures more accurately then

TC are mean bastards, with held 6 months of money from me as they didn't believe our figures despite having evidence for everything. They can do what they like. The only way to really tell what you should be getting is to do the calculation yourself, and then if its wrong ask them to explain why. If you have no luck with tax credits and really need the money try contacting your MP - they will get answers from HMRC far faster that you can.