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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

“Mixed age” couples

Elliot Kent
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Shelter

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A colleague has asked me about the following case. I should probably know the answer but I am bunged up with cold so would appreciate another pair of eyes.

The client is PC age and the partner is about 25 years shy of PC age.. They are responsible for one child. They live in an area which has recently become full service.

The couple are receiving the older member’s state pension and some pension credit (I haven’t been told the amounts). They’re being passported to full housing benefit and they’re getting child benefit for the child.

They aren’t getting Child Tax Credit. They tried to claim after their postcode became full service but have been told that a CTC claim cannot be taken from them and they must claim UC instead.

It seems to me that:
*HMRC are right that they can’t claim tax credits because its a full service area and they could claim UC as a “mixed age” couple
*Claiming UC wouldn’t kill the PC claim, but would it kill the HB claim?
*Claiming UC would most likely be pointless because, even assuming no premiums, the appropriate minimum guarantee is going to exceed the couple and child elements put together.

I can only see claiming UC being worthwhile if the younger partner expects to end up with the LCWRA element or if their are substantial childcare costs or something like that.

Any thoughts?

Jon Blackwell
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Programmer - Lisson Grove Benefits Program, Brighton

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Couples for SPC purposes ( so including mixed age for the moment) are not prevented from claiming HB and tax credits - I think HMRC have got it wrong.

See subpara (4) article 7 The Welfare Reform Act 2012 (Commencement No. 23 and Transitional and Transitory Provisions) Order 2015

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/634/pdfs/uksi_20150634_310815_en.pdf

Article 7 is imported by the other full service commencement orders.

Gareth Morgan
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CEO, Ferret, Cardiff

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Elliot Kent - 29 March 2017 08:20 PM

It seems to me that:
*HMRC are right that they can’t claim tax credits because its a full service area and they could claim UC as a “mixed age” couple”

They’re not right.  Couples (whether mixed age or not) and single people can continue to claim HB and tax credits where at least on is over QASPC.

Gareth Morgan
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That’ll teach me to post things off-line.

LITRG
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Low Incomes Tax Reform Group

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I agree with Jon and Gareth - HMRC seem to have it wrong.

I am attending a sub-group meeting with HMRC next week on the stopping tax credits/moving to UC process so if you can send me any details via email (anonymous) about what happened I can raise it as an issue.

I suppose the key question is whether they were able to get a claim form or whether this wrong advice was at the point of trying to get a claim form?

My email is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Victoria

Elliot Kent
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I’ve passed this on to my colleague. Thanks for the quick and informed responses as always.

In response to Victoria - my colleague says that he phoned up the other day and was told quite forcefully by the operator that they would not take a claim and the operator more or less refused to issue a claim form. He rang up again today preparing for a fight but this time got a different operator who was happy to issue a claim form with minimal factual background.