Regarding the childcare disregard from Housing and Council Tax Benefit could you please clarify something for me.



I understand that the maximum disregard for childcare will increase from April to £135 for one child and £200 for two or more children.

As there is no corresponding increase in the Child Care element of Working Tax Credit does this mean that the income disregard will be applied to other income such as Working Tax Credit, in which case will it be limited to the maximum Working Tax Credit they receive, or will it be a general income disregard.

My understanding is that child care disregard can already be offset against TCs where earnings are too low to benefit in full. This has always been the case for WTC/CTC and also applied to DPTC/WFTC for most of the time they were around - if i recall correctly.

The disregard can be applied to earnings and TCs only - its not a general disregard.

As you say, the higher maximum disregard mean that there will be more people who could benefit from having part of their TCs disregarded so its something to watch out for.
(Occasionally i hear of LAs who still appear to be unaware that the disregard can be applied to TC).

Thanks for that

I agree and I've had a bit more time to check the reg's so in case anyone is interested the relevent regs are HBR 21(1) & CTB 13(1)