Child Tax Credits not very helpful are they?

[RubyBlueberry]

I have a DD who is 3, starting at pre-school again next week and a DS who is 18 months.
I am a SAHM and I also work full time from home.

I want DS to go to nursery two days a week just so I can get all my work done instead of wotking til midnight every night! DD may go to my parents for two afternoons.

We are paying back an overpayment from Tax Credits, as when DD started preschool in Jan I forgot to tell Tax Credits for 4 months (I know, I know I am a numpty) and now they won't tell me whether they will help me with any payments for DS and DD. They say that they can't tell me if I'll be entitled to anything until the application is processed, but I can't apply for a nursery place until I know I will get help with it....

Does anybody have any advice?

I dont understand-why would your DD going to pre-school for 4 months affect your tax credits?

It was the pre-school place paid for by govt, before that she'd been going to nursery two days a week and CT paid for 80% of it. Didn't make that very clear did I!!

Unfortunately there is no way for the TC staff to know if your award will go up if you add childcare on there because of the overpayment. The system is SO complicated it's impossible for them to tell (ex TC officer)
What I would suggest although probably not the recommended course of action is to call tell them DS is in nursery, the recalculation will be done very fast, you should know in a week how your award has changed, you can then call and tell them he didnt start after all, you will end up with extra overpayment of whatever your award changed by for that week, but it really is the only way to know for sure!

OOh, thanks. I will have a chat with DH and get him to call next time

Message withdrawn

Well I disagree, it can't be that hard to say "yes you are entitled" or "no you aren't entitled". Or even "when your overpayment is paid back then we will reconsider"

It was £830 that was overpaid so it was not exactly an immense amount

It's not a case of being entitled or not Ruby, technically everyone who gets WTC is entitled to the childcare element, so yes you are entitled. Where it gets difficult is that the entire thing is worked out in one lump sum, so everything that effects how much you get already, will also effect the childcare element. Under straightforward circs they would be able to look at your income etc and give you an idea of how much your award would go up by when you add childcare at X amount. But because you have an overpayment and everyones overpayments are repaid in entirely different ways it's impossible to know or figure out what adding childcare will do to your award, and if in fact you'd see any of the extra money or if it would be eaten up by current deductions, iyswim.
As I said, the only way to know is to let the calculation go through. Although I really should stress to do this you will have to lie to them and thats never really a good idea, although inyour shoes I would, and put it right as soon as I knew the outcome of the recalculation as I said earlier.
Think about it before doing though, I don't want to get you in trouble!

Oh and I wouldn't worry about messing up and forgetting to put right the childcare thing, SO many people do it honestly.
I worked there, and for the time I was actually working for them I managed to get an overpayment for not remembering to make changes! lol
I had one woman call once for something entirely different and I discovered while talking to her, her child she was still getting money for had left home 2 years previously!
I hate to think of how much she had to pay back