Working Ttax interfering with housing benefit.

[LilysMummyx]

Hi everyone so start from the begining..im a single parent and i got a job back in july, i got working tax, child tax, child benefit and housing benefit!
but later was told that because i had working tax i wasent entitled to any housing benefit, i was just wanting to know if this was the case for everyone else? so because i ended up in alot of rent areers because of this i ended up having to give my job up as this seemed the easiest choice for me. But now i have been offered my job back in better conditions to suit me and my little girl.. iv accepted and im happy about and if i have to pay full rent i shall but im just curious to as i think i have been lied to somewhere along this path! if you are ok with it could you share what youre income if you get working tax and how much housing benefit you get or how much rent you pay a week i would really appreciate it :) thank you in advance x

I get both working tax and rent rebate, I think it goes on your wage though, because when I was working 30 hours, I was getting only a very little rent rebate, a couple of quid I think.

Before i was workin on average 20 hours a week i will roughly be the same again sorry i forgot to say that on my post.

It will be because of your income, have you given the housing benefit people proof of your childcare costs as they can be offset, provided the childcare provider is ofstead registered .

The tax credits are counted as income for housing benefit purposes. Every £1 in tax credits you get deducts 65p from housing benefit.

Basically, housing benefit is calculated after your other income. They calculate how much you have coming in from your wage and tax credits, and then decide how much housing benefit, if any, you get.

As a simple rule of thumb, you are always much better off working. However if you have high childcare costs and an expensive commute, combined with minimum wage, that isn't always the case short term.

Long term though, even if yo only end up a few pounds up after all costs considered prior to child starting school, somebody who is employed with an active cv has much more success finding and keeping a better paid job.

lougle that's not correct for everyone. Depends on how much you earn, and how much rent you pay.

Lurked it is correct. How much you earn or pay in rent makes no difference except that you will reach the point of no benefit quicker if you earn more or pay less.

The formula is:

(income - allowances) × £0.65 = excess amount

Eligible rent - excess amount = housing benefit total.

Allowances depend on family make up and childcare costs.

lougle that isn't what you posted at first. It's as you say in your second post, 65% of the total income after allowances. Which is different to 65% of your working tax credits.

The OP had said that the WTC prevented her from getting housing benefit and that surely couldn't be right. I told the OP that for every £1 of income she loses 65p of housing benefit, because in her circumstances she has too much income to qualify.

Yes, the most accurate thing to say is 'every £1 of WTC will push your excess income up 65p'. But in the OP's situation that accuracy wasn't needed.

Tax credits are counted as income for housing allowance calculations unless they are funding childcare. Did you pay for nursery and forget to provide invoices as part of your proofs?

in your post of 22.11 you said op would lose 65p of housing benefit for each pound of tax credits. I just pointed out that's incorrect and it's total income. 65% of total income over the threshold, and 65% of working tax credits will be very different amounts.