Informing the tax credits office??

[blossomsmine]

I have been trying to help my sister, single mum, over the last few months, well almost a year. She, at the moment works parttime and receives £156.00(ish) tax/working credits. She has applied for another job which i hope she gets as she has had serious money problems and wants and needs to get back on her feet.

This new job sounds abit strange, it is working every other week for seven nights, twelve hours but only four of those hours are working hours the other eight are sleeping hours and i don't think she gets paid. She did mention that if she gets woken she can claim payment....sounds complicated!

Anyway, how does she go about informing the tax credits as this seems abit confusing? Do you think she will lose all of her tax credits if she takes this new job? I can't stand the thought of her being worse off money wise as she is barely getting by at the moment.

Any help you have would be great. I am bringing my sister round later and hopefully there will be something for her to read

Just get her to call them. If doing this job means she ends up worse off then she shouldn't take it; if it means she is better off then she can. What's the problem?

Just thought someone might have previous experience of this situation, thats all no massive problem!

I think you have to work over 16 hrs aweek to get working tax credits.By the sounds of it she will be working enough hours.I can't work out how much she will get because i would need to know how much she earns aweek and how many hrs.

What on earth is the job?

Anyway, If it is 12 hours a night, for seven night, that is obviously more than 16 hours a week. In fact its more than 35 so she will get the higher end of tax credits.

Even if they only count the 4 hours that are paid, its for 7 nights so that is still more than 16 hours a week.

FYI - the more you earn, the more tax credits you get.

I would expect she will have to claim on her contracted hours and then, at the end of the tax year, let them know the amount she was paid over the tax year, this would include any waking bonuses etc.

They will then caculate her next years tax credit on that figure and take an amount off if there has been any overpayment made during the previous tax year. Then divide it by 12 for her monthly payments IYSWIM.

Basically, it is just the same as someone who gets performance bonuses monthly or whatever, it shouldn't be a big deal as long as she is upfront about how the system works!

Thanks for all your help

Yes, thats what i wanted to sort out, want her to be completely upfront about it all and not make any mistakes about hours/money etc., otherwise she could find herself paying back a hefty sum i suppose.

It is for a carehome and she just works the four hours the rest is sleep time I think she said the wages are about £45 per evening.

So would she really get more tax credits then?

Let me get this right.She is working 7 nights then having 7 nights off.So she would earn 315 every other week.Or 630 every 4 weeks.

The only problem that i can see is you have to work 16+ hrs aweek to claim WTC.So if she is working 28hrs every 2 weeks WTC may say she is only doing 14hrs aweek.iykwim
hmmmm not sure how they would work it.

Good point mommy6 - but surely she is actually working 84 hours a fortnight, which is 42 a week.

Even though she is not getting paid for some of them, does it not count?

It should, for she is there and HAS to be there. Divide the £45 a night by the 12 hours and work it out as £3.75 an hour.

I think it will depend on how many hours she is contracted to work.i.e.4hrs a night or 12 hrs.
If its 12hrs there is no problem because like DSM says she can put down 84 hrs every 2 weeks.But if she is only working 28 hrs every 2 weeks i think she will lose her WTC.

Thanks, for sitting there working this out for us whilst we were away

It is abit confusing isn't it????

Sounds like quite a good job actually and by the way she is talking it might lead to more hours eventually.

I think she said it states the job as 12hours so in that case she should be ok.

Do you think she might be earning too much and then wouldn't get wtc??

Does it really work out that the more hours you do the more you wtc you get? I am surprised cos i thought they don't want to give people money usually lol!

She'll only be able to declare the hours she gets paid for ie 4 hours a night. Unpaid hours definately dont count for tax credits.

It also has to be 16 hours per week to qualify for WTC so she wont qualify anyway unfortunately.

That sort of shift is called a sleeping night shift; I was always paid a minimum rate (preminimum wage) but then full if client woke and when caring.it'smost usual in caring type jobs.

However with minimum wage legislation I would have thought it would have changed? maybe not. ACAS might be a good point of call.

I find with WTC the best thing always is to cll them and ask, no pint messing with them.

It's not the case that the more you earn, the more tax credits you receive, but the opposite.

Tax credits are based on the previous tax year's income. Therefore, if you earn more the next year, your credits will be reduced slightly. The higher the income, the lower the tax credits. I know, because mine took a nose-dive in April last year, as I'd earned more in that tax year than the one before

Although you can insist they use this years figures to calculate even though they will try to say no ( for example if your DH or yourslef loses a job so your income crashes- quite common atm I expect).

And its not even as simple as the more you earn the less you get- there is an entitlement hike at 16 and 30 hours- its a bloody complicated system!

If she is working and getting paid 12hrs a night,7 nights out of 14 nights,she will be earning 630 before tax every 2 weeks.
With 1 child over 1yr she should get about 126 tax credits.This is 73 WTC and 53 CTC.
She would most likely have to pay full rent and council tax.

If she is only getting paid for 4hrs a night,7 nights out of 14,she will still earn 630 before tax every 2 weeks.
With 1child over 1yr she should get about 53 CTC but she won't get WTC.
If she is renting she might get about half her rent paid and some help with her council tax.

Thank you

I read a form she bought back from her interview and it said 'working 4 hours per shift' so i would say that is then 28 hours over the 14 days.

So if you then work it out as 14 per week, i wonder if they would look at it like that? Its not very many hours though is it....?

Not sure if this is going to work out for her, i will get her to call wtc.

Thank you all for taking your time to think about this for us