Universal Credit and entitlment

[Faustus]

I'm currently embroiled in an argument over my claim to Universal Credit with regard to Army Reserve employment. The system refused my initial claim to UC as my estimated gross pay from the Army Reserve was calculated by me as about £400 gross. The system refuses to accept that it's over the net figure of £338. The issue I have is that the system does not allow for different income tax rates on income from part time work. Since I was working full time my Army reserve employment is taxed at the basic rate so a gross figure of £400 is a net figure of £320. My actual income that month from the Army Reserve ended up being £360.

 

UC refuse to budge on this so I've been trawling the web looking at the actual rules and I can't find anything to justify this £338 figure.

 

The best I can find is this site http://revenuebenefits.org.uk/universal-credit/guidance/entitlement-to-uc/who-can-claim/#Financial conditions which has a link to https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/246147/Chapter_E1_-_Introduction_and_entitlement.pdf

 

Checking that shows nothing with regard to this £338 figure and searching comes up with nothing obvious Can anyone k

[flumps1976]

http://about.universalcredit.service.gov.uk/kms/Pages/Eligibility_for_Universal_Credit.htm

The information about the £338 is about half way down the page.

[Faustus]

Yeah....I'm aware of that. However, the actual act makes no reference to that at all. All it says is that you're still entitled to claim if the amount of income you have would reduce your UC payment to a figure set by the Secretary of State, currently set by him as 1p. So where does this £338 figure come from ?

[flumps1976]

It is Government Policy not sure where they pluck the figures from though sorry.

The only thing I can think of is a single person aged over 25 is entitled to £73 ish per week in JSA so add the £5 disregard onto that and that is £78 which is the £338 figure calculated as a weekly figure.

[smokiejoe]

Sorry, I don't know all the rates and allowances for UC in any detail, not the area I currently work in. The £338 figure will be the amount, once reached, that would mean benefit entitlement calculated, even allowing for single person allowances, income tapers and benefit caps to be applied, would be less than the minimum 1p that has to be entitled to get any form of payment.

 

In effect it is the amount that regardless of all other allowances would lead to a nil entitlement.

[Faustus]

Sorry, I don't know all the rates and allowances for UC in any detail, not the area I currently work in. The £338 figure will be the amount, once reached, that would mean benefit entitlement calculated, even allowing for single person allowances, income tapers and benefit caps to be applied, would be less than the minimum 1p that has to be entitled to get any form of payment.

 

In effect it is the amount that regardless of all other allowances would lead to a nil entitlement.

 

Not sure of that. For every £100 you earn, you have £65 docked, leaving you with £35. To my mind earning £338.10 would see £219.76 docked from £317.82. Throw in the Housing benefit part and I worked out I'd need to just clear over £1,000 net to lose every single penny of a UC payment.