Nursery & Tax Credits - I am confused!

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How does it work??

They tell me I am entitled to childcare vouchers/credits/whatever they are.

DS is booked in to start one morning a week in September.

I have paid the deposit, they want the first month's fees now.

Tax Credits say they won't even take the details from me until the date he starts.

No-one will tell me anything... does the money go straight to the nursery, to me, what happens about what I have already paid?

Someone on here must be able to explain this to me in simple terms pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!

Thank you

I'll go through it again later

Evenhope - the reason for you getting a figure of £0 for 'childcare' but actually increasing by £3K when you include childcare is down to the way they calculate it. (I went thru this in detail cos they screwed me over it).

Basically behind the scenes the calculator tells you how much you are entitled to, with the elements broken down.

Then it decides how much to take off you because of excess earnings. It takes it off the different elements in a certain order (and childcare is near the top). So if you have no childcare it gets subtracted lower down the list. If you do have childcare you lose this first - but then don't lose as much of the other elements cos there isn't as much to lose as you get further down the list. This can make your childcare costs appear to be £0, but give you a higher overall figure.

Ah that makes sense. I didn't bother to go into the breakdown. Thanks slightlymadstar.

You made sense of that post - are you pissed? I almost didn't post it as it was so badly worded/difficult to explain!!!

I only went into teh breakdown when I got stung for an overpayment as a result of IR incompetance in understanding that having £0 childcare element doesn't actually mean the childcare has no impact on the award.