Family "Tax credits"

[PatriciaH]

Ive seen many posts on here refering to these, please excuse my ignorance ,but what are they ? what payments do people get? what for etc..

[ELVIS68]

I`m not sure what they`re for, Mrs Elvis deals with all that.

I used to get them paid into my wages, then they started paying them straight into her account....then I got a call one day saying someone is claiming over �200 per week using my details, ie National Insurance number etc...and to top it all I got a letter saying I`ve been overpaid and can I send them a cheque for �1100!!!!!!!

Needless to say I told them to stop paying us in future and as for the �1100...Well...it rhymes with Dollocks!!!

[PatriciaH]

Hi elvis... long time no chat :) all i ever had was family allowance , might be means tested now ??

[ermintrude35]

...no it's not family allowance, family allowance is now called Child Benefit, and everyone no matter how rich or poor you are get's the same rate...

Family Tax Credit ( run by the Inland revenue) was introduced a few years back to replace Working Family Credit (run by the benefits agency) ... it was introduced to encourage people to get back to work as many long term unemployed seemed to be better off on Income Support (i.e getting their rent and council tax paid and basically just sitting at home doing nothing) ...as more often than not their argument was if they were in a low paid job then they might as well just claim the benefit.... basically your just working for your benefit now...it tops up your wages , it's all very complicated how they work it out , they take into account the size of your family and all the earnings/benefits you have coming in...now while it was the benefits agency that were running the system it was fairly straight forwards and fair but since the I.R have taken over it is a complete sham, they miss calculated , overpaid many familys in the first year of the claim and then drop the bombshell that you owe them thousands of pounds while at the same time stopping any entitlement altogether ...this has left many a family on the breadline, infact I heard of the red cross dishing out food parcles in some cases....

[ELVIS68]

ermintrude35, I have a well paid job and my wife works part time yet they still keep sending us forms to claim Family Tax Credits even though they insist we owe them money.
We have always told them our exact incomes etc, so how can they claim we owe them money?
I notice now they have an advert on TV about telling them about changes in earnings etc, and that you might end up owing them money, personally I think it`s just another government scam to fleece people

[PatriciaH]

My husband has always worked full time and ive worked part time while our 2 were small, when he came in from work id go out for 4-5 hours as i didnt want our kids to be going to a childminder (no grandparenents unfortunatley) or family as in sisters to look after them if you get my drift ...as they also had children of their own id just love to know what you can claim for nowadays

[wolf63]

http://www.direct.gov.uk/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/B enefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/TaxCredits/fs /en?cids=Google_PPC&cre=Money&gclid=CLCDkfKksY gCFSp4MAodtgH61g

The above is a link to the family credits web-page. There is two different types of tax credit for people with children. Child tax credit (most people with children are entitled to that) and Working Tax credit (bit like family credit).

I hope this helps. Most people don't understand all this so don't feel bad.

[ermintrude35]

"Most people don't understand all this so don't feel bad."

...this probably includes the Inland Revenue.....

[wolf63]

I used to work for the Benefits Agency, spent 25 years there, and I didn't really understand much of it. I am not surprised that people are confused.