Child Care Benefits and WTFC Nonsense??

[Baba]

Can anyone help me because my head is totally spinning.

I work part-time and we have our ds at a childminders which costs £64.50 a week (reasonable I think).

My dh only earns £15,000 a year and I only earn £6,000 and yet since we put ds in the childminders, they have taken our WTFC which was £10 per week and replaced it with £36 per week to compensate us for childcare fees so we are only £26 better off..... Is this right?? My head is spinning and I just don't know anymore.

I tried to do a calculation based on me not working, just to see if it is actually worth having a job but that only gave us £341 per month and £260 of that went on nursery fees.

My head is exploding. Any advice would be more than welcome - right or wrong!!!

Baba, if you go to the inland revenue site and look up child tax credits there is a quick calculation there, you should be able to tell from that if the sums are right. I think they might be because once the family income goes over £20,000 the benefits drop sharply.

You can get up to 70% of childcare which would be about £65, depending on earnings. If you get £36 for childcare, as far as I know you should still get the £10 tax credit.

When you did the calculation for you not working why do you have nursery fees? Wouldn't you look after ds? (Sorry don't know your circumstances.)

I called the helpline this week and they were really helpful and nice, so if you are unsure that you are receiving the right amount call them.

Have your circumstances changed since filling in the form? They asked for details from 2001/2002 which is 18 onths ago now, perhaps you had a better paying job - was it before ds? This would account for the lack of help.

Hope this helps, don't know much myself.

Hi Runragged

Totally took on board what you said about Inland Revenue and have checked a thousand times.

Am only working part-time and putting ds in nursery three days a week as I thought it would be good for him as I am not very creative and can't offer him the stimulus that nursery can.

So only getting £36 out of £64 which i thought was pretty bad when they withdraw our £10 wtfc.

Anyway, good advice though. Maybe I should just look after our child myself and take him to playgroup.

Hi Baba,
I am the least creative person around! I used to wish that we could afford to put dd into a nursery for one day a week as I thought she needed the stimulus. Turned out to be total rubbish, even if I do say so myself she is bright and well adjusted with out going!

I don't know how old ds is but here they go to play group from 2.5 which is £4 for 2.5 hours and dd loves.

I got a little band of friends by going to playgroups and then we spent our lives at one or anothers houses drinking coffee! We didn't know anyone where we lived so it was quite hard to begin with. dd hasn't suffered.

Why don't you phone up the tax credits people, tell them that you want to spend more time with ds and ask them how much you would get? It can't hurt.

Baba
Tried to do the calculation for you but the figure I got doesn't make sense.

Got the number for you though, 0845 300 3900, open 8-8 7 days a week, when you phone you will need your NI number and if possible dh's tax ref which will be on his P60. If you don't have tax ref they can look it up, it just makes life easier.

No excuses now!

Thanks for all your advice - phoned the Inland revenue and they still said the same figure - however, I am now going to take ds out of the childminders (he is 15 months) and look after him on my own and go to lots and lots of playgroups..... you were right, it is a complete waste of money!!

So thanks LOL

Hope you don't mind me hijacking this thread but I've had a weird exp with this lot today too. Up to this week, dd went to a registered childminder once a week (£26) and for the other 2 days I work she was looked after my a family friend (ex-reg childminder) in our home so we couldn't ask for her "wages" to be taken into account as she wasn't registered anymore. I work p/t, dh f/t and combined wages are between £30 and £35K. Tax credit we received was £545.
However, today we've enrolled dd into a nursery for those 2 days as our friend can't do it anymore. I rang and informed the inland rev who told me they'd process the new info in about a week but in the meantime, I did the calculator on the website for my own curiousity. Even though we'll be paying out £76 per week instead of £25, the website said our tax credit would now only be about £300!!!
This can't be right, can it?