Can someone help me with this please - Tax Credits

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DH was employed but made redundant in January. Until that point he earnt £14000 (within the Tax year) and this is the same as the Tax credit people think.

Since then he has gone Self Employed, however as he hasnt been paid yet and has had to pay out for office equiptment, travel costs and training costs the business has made a loss of £1700 - we have been living off our savings.

Do I tell the tax credits people that we have earnt £14000, or do I take the £1700 off it, so that we have earned £12300? Im so confused and have heard bad things about people who get overpayments from Tax Credits so really want to make sure we are straight!

I hope I have made sense.

The tax credits helpline are really helpful and patient and will talk you through all this. They've been very good and non-patronising when I've needed to call them. They will work it out with you on the phone.

you add up all the family's income and take off any losses. so if the only income was your husband's 14,000 and then a loss of 1,700 then you need to notify tax credits people of a total income of 12,300.
Be a bit careful with the self-employed accounts, though, if neither of you has background in tax/accountancy. Especially training costs are a bit tricky as HMRC likes to disallow them. The basic rule is that if the training is to update existing knowledge then it's allowable but where it is to acquire new knowledge then it's not.
Also, when your husband does his 2009/10 tax return (which he has to since he's been self employed) he'll probably get a refund as the losses from his self-employment can be set off against his employment income. This will have to be applied for, though, so if he's doing his tax return himself he'll need to bear that in mind.