Sooooo confused - Tax Credits...

[Carey87]

4th April - Start my 6 weeks at 90% pay
6 weeks later - Go to SMP (£112)

I worked out on the tax credit website that we would get about £112 pw. with a household income of over 50k (including me and DP)

a) does this sound about rite?
b) is that per week or per month?
c) can I still claim that with my SMP or not?

I am so confused and really worried that we wont cope with money and have to sell the house, I know that this is proabably more than a lot of people get and I'm not ungrateful at all, just really cinfused please help XX

The amount sounds high on the income.. our income is about 32k and I get £85 a month for three children one at 6months hold. Only my dh works. not sure on the smp..

Good luck..

Why don't you ring the helpline (listed on the tax credits website of the HMRC) - they're a helpful bunch of people (honest, even for tax people). At least then you'd know for sure. Good luck

Sounds very unlikely to me...way too much per week

phone the helpline, listen carefully to what they say, write down what figures you are going to give them before you give them to them so you have a clear record of what you said. They are really nice people but the computer system is clearly flawed IMO.

If you find you have extra income I would recommend putting it to one side just in case they have got it wrong. They have done nothing but make errors for us for the past 4 years - the system is appalling - sorry prob not what you wanted to hear...I probably should have stopped typing after the second sentence.

No BigBadMouse, its exactly what I WANTED to hear. I'd rather know the truth now than in 5 years time when they try and get 20k back from us!

You hear of so many horror stories. I rang the helpline yesterday and the nice gentleman told me that the figure was pw but Im really sceptical about trusting them becuase I know that they hae royally screwed people over before.

Cxx

agree that is an extreme;y high amount..I have 3 dc [4,2 and 13m]dh earns 19k and I recieve dla so household income of 24k and we get £330 amonth which also covers 2 nursery sessions for dds[£196 a month]

Well, if it is any consolation they have picked up on their errors in November each year so you shouldn't hopefully get a 5 year overpayment bill....

The system is sooooo crap, what drives me mad is there is no way of telling if what they have told you is correct. I wish there was a table where you could just look it up instead of relying on a compter taking 1001 variables into account.

You see nothing makes sense to me. My DDs go to nursery 2 ams a week which financially kills us but they get so much from it we keep them there. Only DH works as I can't get paid employment that would cover the nursery fees and fuel costs (cornish wages are not good ). I know other mums at nursery who do not work, their DH does and they get help towards nursery fees (and their income is much more than ours). We get no help at all as the Tax Credit lot say we are not eligible as I don't work.

We got a letter last week saying they have reduced our monthly payment from £43 to £23, that is with 2 DCs 3.5 and 21m (so no baby element) and an income of less than £23K. Nothing in our circumstances has changed so why have they reduced the payments? I haven't phoned them yet as I'm so brain dead from preg hormones and 2 DCs to be able to understand what has caused the change.

Sorry to rant all over your thread, but I suppose it gives you an idea of how it can be. I'm sure there are many worse off than us though - there always is....