working family tax credit (Other Home Services)

Member Name: sideards

Product:	Other Home Services
Date:	02/03/01 (962 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: helps people back into work

Disadvantages: thanks for the cash but where did it go

Working family tax credit is a benefit system designed to allow parents, single or otherwise, to go out to work where they would otherwise have to stay at home in order to look after their children.
Some would say that if you have children then you should stay at home with them but is this not always practical.
I myself am a single father and without the working family tax credit I would not be able to earn a living and would be forced to support my family on the proverbial breadline.
It works something like this. If you work for at least 16 hours a week, have at least one child under the age of 16 years old (under 19 if they are in full time education), have savings of £8000 or less then you can apply for working family tax credit (WFTC).
If you work for more than 30 hours then you are entitled to an extra £10 on top of your WFTC.
There are allowances for childminding expenses but these have to be applied for at the same time as applying for the WFTC and MUST be with a nationally registered and approved childminder NOT family or babysitters.
WFTC is evaluated every 6 months and once evaluated cannot be changed until the next re-evaluation.
For myself I claim WFTC at the full amount (not including childminding). this allows me to do as much or as little work as I need for 6 months and still receive ‘enough’ money to support my family although the amount is about £15 less than If I were receiving income support.
This flexibility is exactly what is needed for families particularly in areas where work is seasonally based, such as the area we live in. this allows people to work during the busy summer months to make life a little easier for the ‘poorer’ winter months.
Unfortunately some people on WFTC are penalised by the council for taking lower income jobs. They (the council) then decide that you have enough money to pay rent and council tax (sometimes full, sometimes part amounts).
Let me give you an ex
ample,
A couple of summers ago I was working 21 hours a week in a public house, I had to use a registered childminder for my son henry whilst I was at work, I received WFTC and a childminding allowance but had my housing benefit and council tax benefit substantially reduced by the local council.
I calculated the pros and cons of working like this and I figured out that I was actually paying about £10 a week for the privilege of working instead of staying home.
I would love to stay home all the time and spend lots of time with my kids but I feel it is important to teach children the value of working for a living as opposed to living off the social security indefinitely.
Going to work each day helps to provide people with a feeling of self worth and self pride.
Staying home makes headway to a feeling of entrapment and a feeling of dependency on a system rather than self-reliance.
These things have a ‘knock-on’ affect on our children and how they develop in our society.
It is very good that the government is encouraging people to work if they really want to but it seems that what ‘the system’ gives with one hand it takes with another.
On a plus side, I took an extra job that summer which allowed me to earn quite a lot of money ‘for summer work that is’ unfortunately that means I didn’t get to spend much time with my kids at all that summer.

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