Working and benefits question - quite urgent

[luxuryhunter]

Our income is just about to go down by quite a bit due to redundancy. I've looked at the benefit calculators on entitledto and tax office but don't get the same amount....

My main question is if the household income will decrease by more than £25000 will they recalculate what we are entitled to quickly? The loss of this income is a huge blow but worried we'll be assessed on earnings last year which meant that we were entitled to very little.

do you mean children's Tax Credits?

Can't really help other than to say if you think you may be entitled to Housing Benefit get your claim in asap as claims can't be backdated. I think most other benefits will make back payments from the date you were entitled to them.

The tax credits website thingy gives you the amount you are due from today until the end of the tax year - could that be the confusion?

Tax credits can be based on the current tax year rather than the previous one however you need to request this and any money earnt over what you declare will result in an overpayment. However if you have already earnt over the basic 17k WTC threashold or £25k CTC threashold you may not see any difference until the new tax year.

You have to use the phrase "in hardship" and ask that your tax credits be calculated on your current (as opposed to previous year's) income. Write to HMRC recorded delivery, keeping a photocopy.

Also tax credits are calculated based on April-March income, regardless of current pa income, so if your pa income drops near the end of the tax year (05/04) you wont see much of a change in tax credits until after 6th April.