need information please

[trapper]

hi has any one any knowledge on tax credits and foster carers what is the entitlement please for a none working foster carer on income support

[Help 1870]

If the children are on Care Orders or considered LAC you cannot claim Child benefit or Child tax credits.

You can claim Working tax credits as fostering is considered as work, you will be assessed as working full time but any money you recieve will be counted as 0 income so you will get the full allowance.

However, WTC has an impact on other benefits such as Income support and Housing/council tax benefit, You would lose your income support completely and possibly a portion of any HB/CTB so if you are considering this id suggest you go down to your local DSS and ask them to do a calculation to see if you would lose on these other benefits before you apply.

[LLB]

I agree that with fostering you cannot get child benefit or child tax credits but when we were fostering we were getting no reward element (pay) of the fostering allowance so it was not income and I was not classed as doing a paid job. I think then you had to working for at 16 hours a week in paid work to get working tax credits but these things do change.

At that time I read somewhere that if you were receiving the reward element (pay) on top of the basic fostering or living allowance then you could be classed as self employed but I could be wrong.

I have just done some research and came up with this which might help:

http://www.simplyfostering.co.uk/what-i ... wance.html

[trapper]

hi thanks all for that info