Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit

Child Tax Credit

This is a Tax Credit for people responsible for at least one child aged up to 16 (or up to 19 if the child or young person remains in full-time education).

Working Tax Credit

This is a Tax Credit for individuals and couples in work.  This means:

• For couples with children, at least one of the couple must be working 16 hours or more per week.  
• For couples without children, the person working must be 25 or over and be working 30 hours or more per week unless s/he has a disability, in which case there is no age limit and s/he needs to be working only 16 hours or more per week.  
• A single parent must be working at least 16 hours per week.  
• A single person without children must be 25 or over and be working 30 hours or more per week unless s/he has a disability, in which case there is no age limit and s/he needs to be working only 16 hours or more per week.

www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcredits

Income Support

This is a means-tested benefit for people aged under 60 who are not required to look for work (e.g. lone parents with children under the age of 16, people who are too ill to work, certain carers) and who are working for less than 16 hours per week (partners less than 24 hours per week).

www.adviceguide.org.uk

www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk

Child Benefit

This is an extra costs benefit for people responsible for at least one child aged up to 16 (or up to 20 if the child or young person remains in non-advanced education or training).  A person who is entitled to Child Benefit will probably also be entitled to Child Tax Credit

www.hmrc.gov.uk

Guardians Allowance

This is an extra costs benefit for people entitled to Child Benefit who are caring for children where:

         Either

• Both parents are dead

Or

• One parent is dead and the other is missing or in prison for more than 5 years.

www.hmrc.gov.uk

Child Support

This is the government scheme for collection of child maintenance from absent parents.

www.csa.gov.uk