UC claim, entitled to nothing. Lost tax free childcare

[BeautifulBirds]

Hoping someone can help.

I've put a joint claim in with my husband for UC.
He has moved from a weekly paid job to monthly paid. Due to cut offs he will have no income for 7 weeks.
I work part time, so only my wage for 6 weeks.
I've paid for childcare for half term, the full amount as per UC rules.
We are entitled to nothing from UC.
So now I've paid a full amount of childcare, and lost out on tax free childcare.
Is there anyway I can reclaim the TFC?

Have you checked that all the elements are there/ correct on your Uc statement?

I don't understand the entitlements, sorry.

It seems to be using gross earnings rather than net.

Why have you lost out on tax free childcare? Don't you have it via your wage?

When I made the claim I was told I couldn't claim for childcare if I used tax free childcare, which is done through gov website not employer.

Ok so have a look at your statement on the home page of your journal. You should have the following.
Standard single or couples element - depending if you have a partner.
Rent element if you rent.
Childrens elements.
Childcare element.
Elements ( particularly child elements ) can be missed off on a first statement and this would hugely affect your award as if no child element there is no work element either.

The tax free childcare needs to be credited to your TFC account before you pay the bill. If you paid the childcare bill direct instead, for the full amount due to the expectation of receiving a UC reward, that payment is completed now. There's no facility within TFC to claim a backdated credit as far as I'm aware.

What UC award did you expect? Did you not do the entitled to calculators on your income before applying?

The childcare element hasn't been accounted for.

Due to the assessment period we won't be entitled to anything, as it's picked up husbands wages from 2 weeks pay.
By the time the next assessment period comes he would have started ro receive pay from new job.

Even if your husband's earnings received within the assessment period result in a nil award, the childcare costs should still be detailed on the statement. Did you submit the relevance childcare costs evidence on your online UC account before the end of the assessment period? It's worth sending a message via the journal asking if there's an outstanding task for them to verify your childcare costs.

Thanks.
They haven't included childcare costs.
I submitted the invoice and screenshot of my bank account showing the payment going out.
There's nothing outstanding for me to do or note in my journal.

It will depend on when the childcare occurred.
UC backdates childcare. So if you assessment period is 14-13th of the month and your childcare is in advance for the 15th to the 30th it will be paid on the next assessment period

Wrong thread - apologies

How did you manage to sort this in the end?

We have been in a similar situation. My partner was out of work temporarily, so we thought we'd try and get something back for once - huge mistake!

We were told we'd get a certain amount from UC using the calculator, didn't get that much, they then said what they did give us was wrong and we needed to pay it back, resulting in us missing out on 3 months tax free childcare AND oweing them money 😢

There were so many hurdles at every stage, including their inability to confirm how much we'd been paid every month, it took nearly two months for them to confirm childcare costs and they paid us wrong, twice. So then for them to tell us we owed them money, as well as losing out on our tax free childcare contribution, was a real kick in the nuts!

I closed our UC claim immediately and called tax free childcare to explain, and they said unfortunately we just had to wait for the next eligibility window as they couldnt switch us back because that's just the way the system is set up (to do it every 3 months), but they did tell us we could try filling in the technical claims form - we've done that and are just waiting for a response, to see if we could get back the amount of TFC contribution we missed out on. Fingers crossed!

Hi @vrm2105

In short, I didn't manage to sort it out.

My husband was 7 weeks without pay, we had to survive on my PT wage and borrowed money from family.

I had to pay full childcare, as can't claim tax free childcare at the same time. Which I understand, but I feel it should be that if you aren't entitled to UC they should automatically do the tax free.

Anyway, they system is very difficult. Hopefully I never have to claim again.