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Original poster

CHILDCARE TAX CREDIT QUESTION-

35 replies

mooshy · 13/01/2004 23:02

Does anyone know how much a couple can earn to qualify for help with childcare costs.We have 3 in childcare, but i think we earn too much to qualify ??

OP posts:

CountessDracula · 13/01/2004 23:04

mooshy you can fill in your details here on the IR website and they will tell you immediately how much you do/don't qualify for.

popsycal · 13/01/2004 23:06

i am a teacher of 7 years
dh earns roughly the same
ds is in chidcare for 3 days per week
we both work full time
we get aruond 40 pounds per month....

GillW · 13/01/2004 23:19

I think with 2+ children and the max childcare expenditure it's about £42k joint income - but the spreadsheet with the details is at work and I'm at home. Will look tomorrow if no-one comes up with the answer before then.

GillW · 13/01/2004 23:23

Try this for an approximate guide. £42,527 is the point beyond which you get no help with childcare costs.

popsycal · 13/01/2004 23:30

erm.....we get help......
is it lumped in with working tax credit though?
maybe i needto get back in touch with them...it may have been assessed with me being on maternity leave

bugger

zebra · 14/01/2004 03:01

I think you're ok, Popsycal; the link GillW gave suggests you could be getting £545/year, and if you said you're getting £40/month, that would only £480/year.

Thanks for the link, GillW, good news for us!

marialuisa · 14/01/2004 09:00

Popsycal, I think the £40 per month is just tax credit rather than childcare tax credit. As i understand it, the child care element is separate. I think with one child in childcare you have to have a max income of £25k per annum to get help. At least this is what the Geordie phone advisor said to me, after laughing down the phone when I rang and asked if we qualified for help with DD's childcare.

Bozza · 14/01/2004 09:50

I think that with both parents working you have to be on a relatively low income to qualify for childcare help. Popsycal your sounds like what we get which is the child tax credit - we get nothing for childcare. We are in a huge bracket (I think joint income from £35K to about £55K) where you get that same amount. I looked into it because I thought we might get more when second baby is born but it will not change. Despite obvious increase in childcare cost plus general child related expenses.

zebra · 14/01/2004 11:26

With one child, MLuisa & Bozza -- when you have a 2nd kid the threshold where help with childcare kicks up again... that's what the link that GillW gave implies, anyway. I presume it moves up again with 3 children(?). CTC is a lifesaver for us, anyway.

popsycal · 14/01/2004 17:11

marialuisa - that's geordies for you
Dreadful aren't they....
She says in her broad geordie accent....

Lisa78 · 14/01/2004 17:35

Was just talking to IR about this!

Workingfamily tax credit is about £40 per 4 wks, with a babe under 1, you get extra - this is variable depending on your joint income.

Childcare tax credits only if income is under the £25K mark.

The website will do a calculation for you - and you can apply on line - but its an approximate amount. The figure it gives you is the total to March 31st

oliveoil · 15/01/2004 11:14

I have just been on the IL website and it asks for your income between Apr 2001 and Apr 2002. However I gave my job up in Apr 2001 and went traveling for 12 months so my income was, er, £0.

Can I still apply do you think?

I got a tax rebate when I got back from travelling, would this have been my child tax credits? Was a mare getting the rebate as dh was born in canada so all the forms were aimed at immigrants but he has lived here since a baby.

I HATE FORM FILLING.

M2T · 15/01/2004 11:25

OO - My income then was greatly decreased as I had 5 months out of work due to maternity leave. I had to submit this amount and they calculated it from that. They sent me a letter saying I was entitled to a lovely amount and I was so pleased! However, the small print then said if my income had changed by more than £2k since then I had to inform them.

I was livid as I told them at the time that my income would be much more now and they had said "doesn't matter, we'll use the lower one to calculate". I spent ages filling in that feckin form and waited ages for the outcome only to be told......actually its all rubbish!

I phoned them to give them my estimated earning for the current year and was told to phone back later as the computers were down. I had waited 20 minutes in queue to be told that!?!

I never bothered phoning them back and they've been paying me ever since. I know they will ask for it back. But I was just SOOOOOOOO angry.

oliveoil · 15/01/2004 11:28

Are the forms as horrendous as I imagine they will be?

marialuisa · 15/01/2004 12:10

Um, let's just say that we've decided not to bother this time. The forms are pretty straightforward but they managed to lose our application, overpay us, etc. etc. and as what we're entitled to equates to a cheap takeaway curry every month....BTW, we are not incredibly wealthy and have an eye-watering mortgage, but there we go...

oliveoil · 15/01/2004 12:16

I'll have your share then .

I just remember filling in form after form after form when I was trying to get some sort of maternity pay after coming back from travelling and the fact that I had worked for 14 years meant f-all, they wanted to know where I had been and why what a nightmare.

Bozza · 15/01/2004 12:18

Marialuisa I don't think outgoings are taken into consideration at all.

Zebra I was sent a leaflet from them which included a table which said how much you got dependent on the no. of children and your income for the tax credit and the number of children, cost of childcare and your income for the chilcare credit. I think to get anything more I would either have to have four children and give up work completely or have four children and go full time. And then it would have been maybe an extra £20 a month!

marialuisa · 15/01/2004 12:39

I know outgoings don't get taken into consideration, which in some ways seems ridiculous (as does the fact that having kids and paying for childcare isn't taken into account when you start paying back your student loans).

Oliveoil, you are more than welcome to my share. Really don't think it'll make much difference though!

Lisa78 · 15/01/2004 14:37

No outgoings are not considered

Forms are easy but look huge - you don't have to fill every section in. Besides, you can apply on line

Tasha28 · 15/01/2004 19:05

I thought that it was joint income of no more than £52,000 to qualify. I haven't done it yet. Is it lots of paperwork?

zebra · 15/01/2004 19:18

Mmmm... is your houshold earning more than £40k, Bozza? It's just GillW's link suggests that childcare costs when you have 2 kids do get subsidised (at least a little bit) up to £40k. Am I reading that link wrong, or is the link just wrong?

I wonder if I should start a thread "how much do you really work for each month?" -- I know in the past it was like... £85?/month in my case, after all the costs were factored out.

Moomicat · 15/01/2004 22:27

Just had to add my twopennorth worth in to this thread! I have recently back back and forth with tax credits as I am considering giving up 3 day a week paid job and registering as self employed ( I also have a small business which I run from home which I would love to do full time ). To see if I qualified, I too went on-line and was overjoyed to see that I could almost as much in tax credits (working and child care) as my net wage - luckily I did not hand in my notice but went to the Inland Rev office locally to sort it all out. Straight away the advisor said - DO NOT RELY ON THE WEB INFO - IT GIVES INACCURATE INFO. Instead I discovered my child tax credit will go down by 110 quid per month from Apr 04, as the baby is over 1 year old, and our household income has to be under 8000 per annum to get ANY significant working tax credit. What a swizz. When I complained, the tax worker said its all a big mess and there's been lots of overpayment this year - a lot of adjustments will be taking place (I quote!).

So, what a load of bolox, is my response - its easier not to bother, and don't even get me started on their tax credits helpline!!!!!!!!!

zebra · 15/01/2004 22:41

Our income & child care costs have fluctuated almost monthly since CTC came in... they certainly should have gotten it right with us constantly phoning to amend our details. Will be a massively wide-spread cock-up if they got us wrong.

marialuisa · 16/01/2004 11:50

Today we have had 4, yes FOUR award notices. Our allownace is different on each one, and varies between £80 per month and under a tenner per month. Despite repaeated phone calls thbey still have managed to get completely the wrong incomes for me and DH. I don't want the bloody money, too much hassle and now i'm going to have spend hours on the phone in case they pay us and demand it all back at the end of the year. AAAH!

marialuisa · 16/01/2004 12:40

Well, yesterday they paid £1500 into our joint account. Apparently we have to let it sit there until April. This is the equivalent of about 6 years tax credit. `God help anyone who actually needs this money, esp if they are in receipt of other benefits, an overpayment like that would mess up everything.

Moomicat, soory to hear you can't give up the day job yet. hope the business is going well.

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