Tax Credits : 24 hour / week minimum from April .... how will it affect you?

[TalkinPeace2]

As the title says
if you currently work over 16 but under 24 hours a week, how will you deal with the fact that from April you will no longer get tax credits?

employers who pay min wage for 24 hours will start to get hit by ERS NI
whereas on 16 hours they did not

are there actually the jobs out there (especially with big business making use of WORKFARE)

How will you cope?

I feel "glad" I am a single parent and so not (yet) going to be affected by this. But once Universal Credit comes in will probably be a different story.

am a lone parent so it won't affect me, but am increasing my hours to 25 from 1 April anyway, and will then be above the income limit so will no longer be eligible for tax credits.

You do know the 24 hours is joint working hours for couples and not just for one of you to work?

TaxInfo

Wont affect us this year. When univesal credit comes in i will have to get another job to increase my hours as i dont work enough at the mo.

We've had a year to adjust to this, increase our hours if needbe. It's 24 hours for couples, which shouldn't be too difficult. I know there aren't many jobs available, but even a 2 hour office cleaning job of an evening would net you 10 hours extra. It doesn't seem like much to me to ask of a working couple

At least one in the couple has to do 16 hours i think ie you can't both do 12 hours.

I don't even know what the changes are . I'm a lone parent, working 25 hrs a week (on paper - in practice much more but that doesn't count apparently ).

DP been on SSP for 6 months - I don't know what that means for him.

Grockle - you're not claiming as a couple are you? Lone parent or have a partner?? If you're claiming as a lone parent you'll be fine, 25 hours a week will qualify you for tax credits and DP will carry on as he is on SSP with no difference. if you're claiming as a couple, one of you will have to work 16 hours and the other at least 8 to make the 24 hours

No, not claiming as a couple. DP doesn't live with us.