Childrens tax credit 2002-03 - any experts?

[rozzyraspberry]

Hi.

After the thread started a few weeks back I sent in my claim form and received a cheque for £529 + interest this morning. However, ds1 was born on the 2nd December 2002 so I was under the impression I was eligible for the higher amount of £1,048. Does anyone know if this is right? What did anyone else with birthdays around this date get?

Neither dh or I were higher rate tax payers. Is it pro rated according to when the child was born?

Thank you

You'd get the pro rated rate for Dec-April, does that work out? Probably

hth

No that doesn't work out Delgirl. Am a bit confused as none of the info online says that it is pro rated and it seems an awful coincidence that the amount I have received is the same as the amount I would have got if I hadn't been entitled to the higher 'baby' rate. Just wondered what everyone elses experiences were. Will phone them on Monday.

Rozzy, sorry to hijack, where did you send your form to? We had real difficutly finding an address and even when we did it was not certain that it was the right one!m(It was not on the form I downloaded!)

nc - sent the form to the tax office on my p60 and only took 3 weeks from sending form in to get the cheque.

If you got £1048 for the year pro rated for you is 1048/12 x 4 approx is £349 plus extra?? Seems ok to me. Have you worked it out on the calculator thing and was the amount the same back then? Hope i'm not teaching you to suck eggs

Delgirl - amount for 2002 at higher baby rate was £1,048 and according to websites it wasn't pro rated. Amount without baby rate was £529 which is what I got and why I think there may have been a mistake. Apparently even if baby was born on last day of tax year you should get full allowance for the year. Will wait and see when I phone on Monday.

Thanks Rozzy, that is where we sent it too, but it took hours of phone-calls to find out as no-one in the HMRC anywhere had a clue what I was talking about! Even when we were eventually told I was not confident as we had also been told 7 other addresses along the way!

Delgirl, is there a calculator available now?

here you go www.taxcredits.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/qualify/diqhousehold.aspx

I dont know then but I would have thought you'd get April - December in the next years i.e 2003. Maybe as you're claiming late, they won't give it. Best to ring but you may get different answers each time.

sorry, I did read your posts though it doesn't seem like it just i'm getting old and I forget before I hit the add button

Delgirl - I think we have our wires crossed.

I'm talking about the childrens tax credit which was in force in the tax years 2001-02 and 2002-03 before the current system came into force in April 2003 (which is what your link relates to and I have fully received). It was given as a tax allowance so reduced the amount of tax you paid rather than physical payments made to you under the new system. There was a thread on here recently as well as info on other websites - apparently a lot of people (including myself!) didn't know about it but you have up to the end of Jan 2009 to claim for a rebate for 2002-03.

What I was really asking was for confirmation - either from someone who knew a bit about this old allowance or from someone with a child born between 6th Apr 02 and 5th April 03 who has received the allowance - that there was actually a higher baby rate as I don't seem to have received this in my rebate for some reason despite my ds1 being born on 2nd Dec 02.

Am not very good at explaining myself!!

Rozzy, have you tried ringing the number for you local office and asking them to explain? I did find them very helpful when I rang them up (a lot of gong off to check bits with others etc but overall very helpful indeed!

The higher baby rate wasn't pro-rata, so you should have got the whole lot.

Is it possible that (a) you'd already had the lower amount and this is now the top-up or

(b) you gave the dob of the older child?

Otherwise it is possible that the person who dealt with your claim didn't realise there were two rates. Give them a ring and check.

Thanks everyone will ring and check tomorrow.

Ds1 is our oldest so definitely didn't give dob of an older child. We didn't get any allowance previously.

Was just a bit disappointed when I got the cheque yesterday as was expecting £1,000+ - bit silly I know since a few weeks ago I didn't even know about this but I'm just at the end of maternity leave after having ds3 in February and the money will be very handy!

Did you get anywhere rozzy?

Called them this morning nc and have to put my query 'in writing' so god knows when I'll get a response!!

Well, if it only took 3 weeks to process then you may get a quick response (I wouldn't hold my breath though!)

Our claims were received today, I am hoping to get a little windfall before Christmas - again no breath holding here though!

Fingers crossed for speedy responses for us both then!!

Had a call today to say it was in the wrong place but it has now been sent to the right place ... which is the place I was told was the wrong place....

On the up side of course at least they are telling me what is happening to it!