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Who can get tax credits?

Nine out of ten families with children get tax credits, but you don't need to have children to qualify. You may also qualify if you are working and earning low pay.

• Tax credits - do you qualify? Opens new window

How much do you get?

The amount of tax credits you get depends on things like:

• how many children you have living with you
• whether you work - and how many hours you work
• if you pay for childcare
• if you or any child living with you has a disability
• if you're aged 50 plus and are coming off benefits

Your payments also depend on your income. The lower your income, the more tax credit you can get.

Example 1

Mr and Mrs Khan both work full-time. Between them, they earn about £25,000 a year. They have three children. They get about £55 a week in tax credits.

If their income was higher, and they earned about £50,000 a year, they’d get about £10 a week instead.

Example 2

Jon Barry is aged 30, not married and lives alone. He works full-time and earns £10,000 a year. He gets about £12 a week in tax credits.

How tax credits work

If you're married or living with a partner you'll need to make a joint claim for tax credits. You can only make a single claim if you don’t have a partner.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) pay tax credits directly into your bank, building society, Post Office® or National Savings account if it accepts Direct Payment - either weekly or every four weeks.

Who gets the payments?

If you're both working and you both qualify for Working Tax Credit, you can decide who'll get the payments.

If you’re claiming Child Tax Credit and you’re in a couple you need to decide which one of you is the children’s main carer. If you’re the main carer then the money will be paid to you.

How tax credits payments work

The tax credits payments you receive are based on your current personal circumstances and your income from the tax year that ended on the 5 April 2008. If you’re making a new claim for tax credits your payments will usually run from the date of your claim to the end of the tax year. For example, if you make a claim on 10 November 2008, your payments will be worked out from that date until 5 April 2009.

Each year during April, May and June HMRC write to you asking you to:

• check the information they have about your personal circumstances
• confirm the income you received in the year that has just ended
• renew your claim

This helps HMRC to check that the payments they have made to you were correct. It also allows them to base your payments for the year ahead on the right amount of income.

Sometimes you will have been paid too much or not enough. If this happens HMRC will make an adjustment to make sure that your payments are correct. Any payments HMRC make from 6 April 2009 to the date on which you renew your claim are temporary or provisional and if you don’t renew, you may be asked to pay them back.

Changes at home and work

If your circumstances change it can affect the amount of money you should be getting. So please contact HMRC as soon as possible to tell them about any changes.

• Tax credits: how and when to tell HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) about changes

Contact HMRC

You can contact the Tax Credit Helpline on 0845 300 3900 or textphone 0845 300 3909 open from 8.00 am to 8.00 pm seven days a week except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day.

More useful links

• Find out how much you might get using the tax credits calculator Opens new window