All,

My partner and I are relative novices in this world of Tax Credits - our son is 20 months old and I was hoping that someone has a grasp of how things are worked out in terms of how much we are awarded.

Up untill our recent annual review, we were in receipt of £11 per week. This is based on one salary of slightly more than £21k and one at £18k with £330/m childcare costs for the year 2006-2007.

We have just stated in our review that the only change to those details for 07-08 is that the £18k employed salary is now a £5k self employed salary. Now, without sounding greedy, I had thought we were due for a nice chunky back-payment and a decent rise in our weekly benefit. Our back payment is to be about 60 quid and a hike of £4 per week.

Does this sound right to everyone? I'm not jumping up and down per se but I just can't see the logic in £4 per week helping towards the loss of around £13k per year to a family...

Thoughts please MS-folk

JJ

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You gotta tie yourself to the mast my friend, and the storm will end.

Have you tried working it out yourselves via the HM website???http://www.taxcredits.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/HomeNew.aspx

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Regards

Ian

Nope but I have now. Good thinking Batman... :-)

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You gotta tie yourself to the mast my friend, and the storm will end.

Credits are more a flat rate bonus to reward people who work rather than a means tested benefit. It's an extra couple of thousand for workers on lower incomes - it does not bump all workers up to a minimum salary of, say, £18K - you don't get £10K if you earn £8K and £1K if you earn £17K!!!