Child Tax Credit

A question about : Child Tax Credit

I'd be really grateful for some advice.....

My husband has been signed off sick for nearly 3 years (stress & depression) & following a recently requested reassessment because he has zero income, they have now decided that they deem ALL our weekly child tax credits as his income.

He has 2 children (13 + 16) with ex
We have 2 children between us (6 + 8)
We also have 2 of my children from my previous marriage living with us, that we receive child tax credits for (their father has moved abroad & pays nothing)

I work part time & receive all the working & child tax credits into my bank account, but it's a joint claim as we live together.

He has no income or savings & is unable to claim any sickness benefits due to my income.

How can they use ALL the child tax credits as his only income?
surely at the most they can use as assessed income is half of our joint claim for child tax credits?

Is it worth an appeal?

Thanks for any info......

Best answers:

• I dont claim to know how csa work and will not be able to give you accurate advise. Its more a rant than anything else, so I do apologise!!!
  What gets me is that your partner is off work sick, so obviously he is not earning money to provide for his other children... thats ok...if your sick then there is nothing you can do about that, but what does get me is that the csa are now looking at your ctc as income... now this is what i dont get with the csa, in my way of thinking ctc is to help your children in your household to not live in poverty yeah!!
  Right now am assuming your OH ex is working and she claims ctc, and the same applies in her household ie poverty, so the csa want to use your ctc to obviously give to OH ex. Why??
  This will probably cause him more depression and stress Cant a man be sick?? sometimes money just has to go on the back burner until the person is healthy again to start earning to be able to provide again.
• The rules state that child tax credits will always be deemed to belong to the NRP regardless of anything else so you won't win on that argument. They won't take the working tax credits into account as you are the earner, so that is now out of the equation.
• I am guessing your tax credits are between Ј100 and Ј200 per week. If so he would pay Ј5 for the first Ј100pw of tax credits and 25% of anything over Ј100.
  Everyone can argue whether it is right or wrong to include tax credits. Complaining will change nothing - better to look at it positively rather than negatively, eg if he could work the tax credits would be much less and therefore the payments received are supplementing his lack of income.
  On another note, have you enquired into sickness benefits available? The benefits board have a few experts there.
• Thanks, very interesting, just a quick question though - if the NRPP earns more than the NRP, what is the allocation of CTC, will they split it 50-50 for assessment/NRP income purposes?
• Nope. All child tax credits are taken into account apparently. Only working tax credits may be split or discounted.
• I had 5 kids living at home and as one of them was only 1 at the time I stayed at home with kids. Ex got all my ctc taken into account for calculations. When OH came out of work for a few months and I was working, Yes you guessed it all my ctc was taken as his income. Thing is if I did what she did and lied to the state pretending I was a single parent thus claiming discount on ct and claiming wtc and ctc, then the csa would have been paying me for our two kids as well as her one and then they couldn't have stolen my kids tax credits and she would have got a fifth of what she gets now. Oh and by the way no I never got any from my ex and can't now he's dead. The csa is !!!!
  I know I sound bitter. I am. Because we are honest people and get penalised. While she gets away with being a greedy cow and the system allows her too.
  When I got divorced 11 years ago I was allowed to keep the first Ј15 maintenance( I didn't get any) Everything else was taken as income. Now this government has deemed that every child should not be in poverty. Really? But it's ok for my 5 to go without. Don't forget there is only a 25% disregard (because 2 don't need to eat, be clothed or bus fares and dinner monies for school) and then she gets 15%. How fair is that. Oh and just had a benefits check and we are on Ј30 less than income support.
  It has got to be an infringement on 2nd families human rights but with this government it's all about looking good about looking after kids who have been 'abandoned' by these ne'er do well dads ( always the dad's fault not).
  I'm not saying that csa shouldn't be paid. In our case it was and then some and then when you ask for some leeway, no csa him. Greedy c!w.
  Pointless doing anything as csa are a law unto themselves. Surely as breach of human rights. But in this case the law is not common sense.
  Rant over. Sorry. It just makes me so mad being a pwc and an nrpp.
• I know it is hard and frustrating but by being hung up on what she does/doesn't get you are only hurting yourself. Our pwc made our lives hell but then we started to fight back and the best thing that we did was to ignore her and her silly demands etc, at the end of the day you have a husband/partner and your children. Yes it can be a struggle for alot of people and it isn't fair but when there is nothing you can do then the best thing to do is to move on. Sit down with your husband and work out how to save money in your monthly budget (there are great ideas on here) and then work out how much you are entitled to on benefits and hopefully you will find that it can be a bit easier. The thing with CSA is that there is always and end date and when this comes there is nothing the pwc can do she will have to learn to stand on her own 2 feet with no help from you. When our day comes I wouldn't even give her a Ј1 for a cup of tea the saying is true what goes around comes around and as a result of her actions she has lost an awful lot as we were paying for alot of extras which we stopped because of her harrassment. As long as you are supporting the children (who are all that matters) then you know you are doing your bit.
• Thriftysaver, how long do you have left to go? sometimes it helped me through the worst of our pwc's sh*t, to stay focused on the date at which point she had no power over our affairs.
  At present there is a lull in our storm with either 2 to 5 yrs left to go before its over for us (depending on if ss stays on in education). lol our car is dropping apart at the moment and DH wants to get rid of it for a nicer one and reliable not an expensive car but he wants something like an old bmw or mercedes, I dont really care what car we have if its got four wheels and an engine and its a nice colour i'm done. However, if he gets something like what he wants she'll only see that its eg a bmw and not that its a really old one and she'll start, I know she will and I cant be doing with her. I get where DH is coming from he wants to try to pay a little bit more for a car so it doesnt breakdown as much, (getting so we cant pay the repairs on it anymore). I think he should be able to just pick whatever he wants and have it, but if he does it will cost us more than the car is worth in the long run.
  I just want to keep quiet plod along without attracting her attention, and then in the end he can have whatever he wants at a time when we wont suffer for it. If it helps you get through it you could do a similar thing. Every day that goes by is another day marked off.
• You should splash out on a new one the day after her payments end and offer her a lift
  I am evil today
• lol. tee hee.
  although funny I couldnt be ar sed
  you know what I'm saying though dont you. old banger of a car but good workings on the inside making it more reliable all she'll see is the badge on the front and think 'hello hes got loads of money'.
  years ago my father had a very old bmw, not much to look at but it was a great car never a days problem with it. dh tells me that mostly BM's and mercs are quite good mechanically, i've got no idea.
• We had similar with our beloved PWC!!!!
  She stalks our home from time to time, just to keep herself updated, she applied for departure on lifestyle inconsistent with declared income - she sent pics of a flash brand new car parked regularly on our drive to the CSA, and wrote them letters, stating how could my hubs (NRP) possibly afford the aforesaid flash car on his declared income, she even printed off a guide price for brand new from the car manufacturer website.
  So, many months down the line, and after lots of hassle, she took us to a Tribunal on the strength of the car, and a few other allegations, only to be presented with a P11D (Think can't remember), and a statement from my employer to say that I had been allocated a company car as part of my new job (I'm NRPP) and again the P11D to show evidence with regard to my tax.
  SO FUNNY - she lost the Tribunal Appeal, and hasn't recently submitted any pics of cars on our drive to CSA - as far as I'm aware anyway!!!
  I too cross the days off until we are free of this leech, (kids 19 and 16) she has tried to bleed us dry for years, we have always paid maintenance, but whatever we have paid has and never will be enough for her, she's very bitter, it's a sad waste of her life and energies.
• it would be funny if it wasnt how we spent most of our life.
  lol the sort of stuff you describe is exactly the same incidents that were happening to us for about 10yrs ish, solid, every six months we would be off down the court/solicitors road, I promise when our time is up the hubby can have anything he wants I wont give a 4 x golf clubs car you name it, I wont bother my head about it. I wont have to. Although thats a bit disturbing your kids are 16 and 19 so it should all be quietening down now for you bdlt. no strings to be yanking with the 19yr old and only a few more years of cr*p to be had for your pwc for the 16yr old then yours and the childrens life will be your own together.
  I dont know anyone else who lives like we do, only you bdlt and a couple of others on here names are escaping me at the moment.
• Its so sad really, it never seems to be the pwc's that are not being paid etc that take to harrassment it seems to be the really greedy ones who just want more:confused:
  Rest assured I have no time for Nrp's who don't pay towards their children and for that reason it is good that the CSA are around. We used to pay over and above what we needed to because we thought this would give us an easy life but it was just as difficult. Once the children are old enough and we are not paying the pwc we will pay them direct instead to help fund their education or first car etc and I won't begrudge a penny of it!
• Hi, thanks DD and BB. OP sorry for taking over your thread. we have 15 months of arrears to pay and step child has gone back to college aged 17 so possibly have to pay until week after 20th birthday.
  I try not to get bitter. And I know what goes around comes around. It's just not fair (stamp stamp toys out of pram ha ha). Oh says he wouldn't pi$$ on her if she was on fire (nice). But as you say, and I know, it will end and then it's over. She can then go to hell for all I care.
  Dya know what really upsets me? I hate her for making me hate ( good catholic girl I am). I don't like feeling what I feel. I am not a horrible person. I like helping people.
  Anyway I start UNI next week (Law) maybe I'll have a go at the govt in a few years when I'm better armed. (I wish).
  Thanks
  Thriftysaver
• Don't worry my oh has said much worse about our pwc!!! They have no communication now. At the end of the day I don't feel hate for her anymore I feel pity, I have everything she wanted
• Do you know, heres a thought for the day, I wonder if we are treated like this because we just want to get along and not upset or get in anybody's way. you two sound like you have a similar personality or disposition as me. I dont have a row with anyone, in my entire life if you held a survey of every person I ever met and asked them is BB a troublemaker does she like a good row, your answer every time would be 'you dont know shes there' and trouble and BB are the last thing that come together. since meeting our pwc app. i'm nothing but trouble and its all me. I wondered at times if there was something I was doing could stop, when I realised nothing short of 'stop breathing' was going to do it I stopped being concerned. I am many things but in this affair I wasnt the trouble no matter what she says.
  If I had a tougher harder out look I might be less affected even unaffected by our pwc's bad mouth/actions, maybe. I too feel i've had to alter my personality slightly just when it comes to the situation with our pwc to be tough and non giving (if that makes sense). I didnt sit down and think right i'm going to be tough and do this this and this. I dont know when or how it happened just that i'm different now to how I was 5 10 yrs ago and I didnt notice it happening.
  I think perhaps we felt it more than others because we wouldnt even dream that a person would do these things to others so we were surprised when a person did this, I know I was, each incident for many years I was surprised each time until the truth finally dawned on me about 5 yrs into the 'project' she is never going to stop this because the system is facilitating her actions. just like to point out that I am also aware that the system equally facilitates nrps who are real determined to behave equally as badly.
  No, keep yer chin up, time is our friend lol (a gem this ) and every day you go cr*pless should be treated as a gift from the gods else ya'll not ger another
• Well said BB!!!!
  I used to cry and stamp a lot when the PWC kept on hounding and harrassing us, but now I feel nothing ever in the world can surprise me anymore, I'm no longer outraged at her disgusting behaviour, nor am I shocked at her low tactics, or even get a tad vexed when she writes me filthy, foul letters, stating my children are bas****s, and I'm a vile lady of the night - I now smile, she stoops lower than any human I've ever come across, and as you say why ???? I have the life she yearns. Beautiful children to my husband (therefore they are not bast***s, yet she was never married), a nice home, and the love and security of my family, just to add, the PWC and my hubs had split a long time before I came on the scene, so it wasn't as if I even took him from her, she drove him away all by herself!