Working Tax Credit (Leaflet 334)
You don’t need to have children to claim Working Tax Credit.
Download: Working Tax Credit (Leaflet 334)
Date Posted: 21 June 2011
What is Working Tax
Credit?
Working Tax Credit is
help from the Government to ‘top up’ the wages of people on low
incomes who work full-time.
Working Tax Credit helps people who:
- Are over 25 years old.
- Work more than 30 hours a week (or 16
hours a week if you are over 60).
- Have a low income of less than £240 a
week if you are single or £335 a week (joint income) if you
are in a couple.
Changes due from
2012:
Thousands of Usdaw members claim
Working Tax Credit. If you are one of them, or if members in your
workplace claim Working Tax Credit, you need to read on.
From April next year the number of
hours that members have to work to be able to claim Working Tax
Credit is going up. At the moment members have to work at least 16
hours a week to qualify for Working Tax Credit. From April 2012
couples with children will need to work a total of 24 hours a week
to qualify. One member of the couple must work at least 16 hours a
week.
This means for example that a family
will no longer qualify for Working Tax Credit where one parent
works 22 hours a week but their partner does not work. This change
will apply even where one member of the couple can't work because
they are disabled or a carer.
This change will NOT affect lone
parents who will still be able to get Working Tax Credit so long as
they work at least 16 hours a week.
Usdaw is concerned that this change
will mean that some of our members will find it harder to qualify
for Working Tax Credit. We want to hear about the problems this
change will cause so that we can try and persuade government they
have got it wrong.
Working Tax Credits (Leaflet
384) was correct at date of publication June
2011.