Where children are looked after by the local authority but are going home for regular stays to see how things go with a view to moving back home, parents used to be able to claim child additions to IS/JSA for the period when the child was home. However, it looks to me as if this may not be possible for child tax credit. Does anyone know or have any experience of claiming in such circumstances?

Tony

Hi Derbyshire

Not a reply but a request for any answer. We have a case where a child is looked after for a part of each week. Child Benefit is OK because there are two consecutive nights with the parent. The Child Tax Credit is a problem in that the law states that it is not paid for any period where a child is looked after etc. Will there be a succession of relevant periods that have to be revised for any period that the child is not looked after or will there be no payments at all due the nature of looked after legislation i.e. the child is being treated as looked after for the whole of the week? We are going to suck it and see what the HMRC response will be but I would prefeer it if anyone could share their experience.

A bit woolly and no expectation of a response until next week.

Many thanks

Shaun

Hello Shaun

It was 12 months ago - I obviously didn't get a response and I can't remember where I got to with it - you can tell it's not something I've looked at recently!

I will try and look at it next week and come back to you

Tony

Hello Shaun

That was a long next week!!! Sorry.

Did you get a decision on your case?

I have looked at it again and I am still a little unsure. As I'm sure you know, the CTC Rule/Case prevents CTC being paid where the child is provided with relevant accomodation and the local authority is paying for that accomodation. Therefore, it might boil down to whether the foster carer is being paid for the time they are away.

Obviously, the child is still being looked after but it is the 'provided with, or placed in, accomodation' bit of the Rule that might allow some argument.

I have not had a case to deal with since my earlier one and I can't remember the details.

Tony