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Student parents, childcare and tax credits.

3 replies

DrCoconut · 03/07/2014 07:54

It massively annoys me how little help there is for people who are trying to improve their situation. I want to start a campaign for students with a working partner to be classed as employed (or usefully occupied) for tax credits purposes, as being classified as unemployed automatically disentitles the family to any help with childcare costs from tax credits and the student finance help for childcare is a joke at today's living costs, you have to be pretty much destitute to qualify. (I am not proposing to discriminate against lone parents here but if you are on your own and have no other income you do qualify for student finance help with childcare). We took a cut in income for my DH to become a student in the hope that long term we will be better off and lost our childcare support. We are managing as we live in a cheap area but others may not and it is a concern that people may be put off studying and just accept a life of low pay and poor conditions.

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DrCoconut · 03/07/2014 07:55

Sorry, I posted too soon. Is this something MN would be interested in? If not please move to a more suitable board.

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MeMyselfAnd1 · 03/07/2014 08:02

Ad far as I'm aware, even lone parents who are full time students will no longer qualify for tax credits unless they are working at least 16 hours a week.

So, if the point of this campaign is to level the field between married and single parent students... Well, it will be leveled soon to the detriment of everyone's aspirations.

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DrCoconut · 03/07/2014 20:42

It's got nothing about levelling the playing field as lone parents don't get childcare tax credit either if they are not working due to studying. I was a lone parent student so nothing against them at all, quite the reverse. But I got full student support including childcare grant as I had no other household income. If I had had a partner, even a fairly low paid one, I would not have been entitled to childcare grant on account of his income or childcare tax credits on the grounds of not both working. So all childcare costs would have been payable by me/us making it potentially unaffordable. Now we are in a position where I am in work but DH is studying full time. Before when he was working we had around £5k a year more coming in than we have now but were seen to be in need of help with childcare from tax credits. Now we don't qualify for any help at all. We manage just but others who are less well paid than me may not. I'd support any student getting childcare tax credit and the abolition of the childcare grant actually as it is more help that way. But as it stands couples fall through the crack in the system whereas lone parents do not.