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Estimate or declare income for Tax credits
s.17 of the 2002 Tax Credits act gave/gives the claimant the option of ‘declaring’ their income for the relevant year or ‘estimating’ their income for the relevant year.
We have a cl. who seems to have been turned down for a Council service because they have only ‘estimated’ their income for the 19/20 tax year rather than ‘declaring’ it.
I understand that the cl. has a fairly good idea of their probable earnings and has only estimated them because they work variable amounts of overtime and cannot predict this with any certainty.
I was thinking of advising the cl to simply contact HMRC and change the estimate to a declaration and notify HMRC of any changes in earnings as they go.
Does anyone know if there any ramifications about changing from an estimate to a declaration?
This is incorrect. S.17 is referring to the previous year’s income. This can always be declared if final, or estimated, if the claimant is not yet sure about his/her income for that tax year. The estimate has to then be finalised by the following 31st Jan.
Income for 19/20 will always only be an estimated figure.
The references to “current year” in s.17 are simply because the whole section is referring to the previous year’s award.
[ Edited: 2 Jul 2019 at 04:39 pm by Charles ]Thanks Charles, I had missed that.