"Family Credit"-Does anyone know the amounts?

[ravenbluemoon]

OK, so this is a long shot - we are currently trying to appeal an overpayment of carer's allowance, some of which dates back to the 1998/99 Tax Year.

 

Now, we have managed to get copies of statements for that year (thank you Halifax!), and are in the process of accounting for all the income for that year, in order to prove that there was only one job. There is a regular payment that we are having trouble with, but have narrowed it down to Family Credit (the really old version of Tax Credits). However, the onus is on us to prove ourself innocent (as always with the govt!) - so we need to try to verify these amounts before out Tribunal on 14th January.

 

So, the $64,000 question is - does anyone know how to calculate the amounts of Family Credit for this year? We can have a reasonable punt at the earnings etc. to caluclate this ourselves if necessary, as we know that Family Credit was "means tested" (like Tax Credits).

 

We've tried contacting DWP, who passed us on to the Tax Credit people, who passed us on to the local HMRC Tax Office. The HMRC destroys all info over 6 years old, so passed us back to the Tax Credits people - this is a classic "wild goose chase"! I'm in the process of e-mailing the head office of Tax Credits to see if they'll reply, but I'm not holding my hopes up!

 

Thankfully I'm getting a lot of advise from an ex-DWP worker who knows how things tick, but we're stumped with this Family Credit issue. We've come so far, but without this, things could get difficult without some hard figures! By the way, this appeal has lasted well over three years now!

 

Thanks in advance, and whoever can help me with some figure will be regarded as a saint (or a Christmas fairy if you wish! )

 

Regards,

 

Raven

[James 01]

If it is the 98/99 tax year it would be Family Credit so you will have to contact the DWP or perhaps use Google. Working Family Tax Credit / Disable Person Tax Credit started October 1999 i.e. 99/00 tax year.

[enamae]

Try this. Haven't read through it all, but page three mentions an average payment of £57 a week reducing depending on amount earned.

 

 

http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn3.pdf

[Goldlady]

Not sure if this helps. We have been claiming family tax credit since it started so I might be able to find some of the old award notices if you need me to.

 

http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn3.pdf

[ravenbluemoon]

Thanks, everyone!

 

Useful link, that could help with a couple of parts. It would be interestng to find out what the maximum payment would've been - as we know how the award "tapers" as more income is taken into account, and adjustments were made for the number of children (there was two at the time). Therefore we could have a reasonable guess as to the amount payable.

 

For your information, the valuses we are trying to account for come to (approximately) £30 per week, however this amount rises towards the end of the tax year (I'd tell you the value, but I'm at work and the statements are at home).

[Mack Heath]

Raven

 

HMRC still have the Working Families' Tax Credit guidance online. This is post 5/10/99 (and prior to April 2003) but if I remember correctly the calculation was almost identical to Family Credit. If you take a look at one of the Appendices you'll see an example calculation. All you need is the 'applicable amounts' for Family Credit for the year you are interested in, qand you can roughly work out what income you should use from elsewhere in the guidance. The regualtion in the second link sets out the figures from April 1998. If necessary you'll be able to get older figures from the OPSI website as well.

 

WFTC technical guidance: HMCR :

 

FamC rates 6/4/98: Statutory Instrument 1998 No. 470

 

Regards

 

Mack

[ravenbluemoon]

Thank you very much, Mack.

 

There's some useful numbers to trawl through, but I think a bit of work will lead me to a useable value. Trouble is, we are only using a "ballpark" figure for the income which was earned by the wife's ex-hubby, and I don't think he's going to tell us the real figure, even if he remembers! Our fgure seems close enough, anyways.