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What to claim?
I have a client who has long term disabilities & receives PIP. He lives alone & has a small mortgage. He was working very part time & so has tax credits of £80 per week. He has been sick from work for about 12 weeks & the work has now ended. There is a possible entitlement to cont based ESA. I am unsure as to whether he should claim this & UC or just claim UC on the basis that they would also look at any cont based entitlement? The other problem is that the current tax credit award is higher than the basic rate of UC or ESA so I am very unsure how to proceed.
Grateful for any help or advice.
I have a client who has long term disabilities & receives PIP. He lives alone & has a small mortgage. He was working very part time & so has tax credits of £80 per week. He has been sick from work for about 12 weeks & the work has now ended. There is a possible entitlement to cont based ESA. I am unsure as to whether he should claim this & UC or just claim UC on the basis that they would also look at any cont based entitlement? The other problem is that the current tax credit award is higher than the basic rate of UC or ESA so I am very unsure how to proceed.
Grateful for any help or advice.
My understanding: if he was receiving WTC he just need to inform HMRC and continue with it and for 28 weeks with WTC with some additions.
Please bear with me as I’m exhausted at the end of today, and please anyone correct all of this:
The client would get a 4 week run on of WTC after employment has ended (28 weeks during sickness whilst still employed) and the client could claim New Style ESA during this time so as not to lose out on the WTC amount I think, however NS-ESA would reduce the amount of tax credits as it’s assessable income. New Style ESA, is basically Contributory ESA, but in a full service area for UC, so no ir-ESA top up can be paid.
After this, NS-ESA by itself might be less than if the client claimed UC as a means tested top-up (UC doesn’t look at NI contributions), obviously you’d need to check the calculations depending on other income/savings. When UC is claimed, the TC entitlement will end and client won’t be able to go back onto legacy benefits.
However, if the client has had ib-JSA, ir-ESA or IS (or even Housing Benefit if client has only just become a homeowner) with a severe disability premium (if client gets PIP DL component and no-one is claiming Carer’s Allowance or carer element of UC for looking after them) or has had it in the last month, then client can claim legacy benefits. If not, then only options would be UC and/or NS-ESA.
I’m pretty sure an SDP amount in Council Tax Reduction or disabled worker element of WTC means that the client would still have to claim UC if they wanted a means tested income replacement benefit though.