Reasons why your tax credits might go down or stop

There could be a number of reasons why your tax credit payments go down or stop. It may be for the simple reason that your circumstances have changed and the Tax Credit Office have changed the amount they are paying you.

Changes in your payments

The most common reasons why your payments may have gone down or stopped are:

• a child reaches 16 but you haven't told the Tax Credit Officethey're staying in education or training
• your award notice shows you've been overpaid - and the Tax Credit Officestarted to collect back the money
• you've changed your bank account but not told the Tax Credit Office
• you haven't renewed your tax credits
• your income has gone up by more than 25,000, and so your tax credit payments have gone down

The reasons are explained in more detail below.

If your child is now over the age of 16, your Child Tax Credit payments for them may have stopped because the Tax Credit Office didn't know they're staying on in full-time education or are doing an approved training course. It's very important to tell the Tax Credit Office these details - otherwise your payments for that child will stop on 31 August after their 16th birthday.

• Your child reaches 16 - are you still entitled to tax credits?

You'll get an award notice if your tax credits payments change. This may say that your payments are going down or stopping altogether because the Tax Credit Office have paid you too much. This can happen if you haven't told them about a change in circumstance or your income has gone up.

If your payments have stopped because you no longer qualify for tax credits, the Tax Credit Office willl ask you to make a direct payment to pay back any outstanding overpayment.

• How overpayments of tax credits can happen

• Repaying overpaid tax credits

If you've changed your bank or building society account details recently and haven't told the Tax Credit Office, then your payment will have been sent to your old account. You need to tell the Tax Credit Office your new account details as soon as possible so that you can get future payments paid to your correct account.

• Tax credits: changes you need to report and when

The Tax Credit Office ask you to renew your tax credits after the end of each year so that they can make surethey have paid you the right amount of tax credits for the previous tax year, and that they are paying you the right amount for the current tax year.

The Tax Credit Office send you a renewal pack, which you must usually complete by 31 July. If you don't renew your tax credits, your payments will stop and you may have to pay back any payments you have received since 6 April as well as any overpayments.

• Why and how you need to renew your tax credits claim

If your income for the current tax year is expected to be more than 25,000 higher than income for the last year, you may get less tax credits.

If you expect your income for the current year to be no more than 25,000 higher than your income for the last year, it will make no difference to the amount of tax credits you will receive for the current year. However it's still a good idea to let the Tax Credit Office know about the change as the increased income will be taken into account:

• in the following year
• for the payments made to you after April, but before you've renewed your claim

If you don't tell the Tax Credit Office about a change in income, you may not be getting all the money you are entitled to, or you could be building up an overpayment that you have to pay back.

• Changes in income and tax credits

Contact the Tax Credit Office

You can contact the Tax Credit Helpline on0845 300 3900, or textphone 0845 300 3909 if you are deaf or have a hearing or speech impairment(open from 8.00 am to 8.00 pmevery dayexcept Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day).

If you're calling from overseas you can also contact the Tax Credit Office on +44 289 053 8192.

More useful links

• How to avoid being paid too much or not enough tax credits

• Checking your tax credits award notice

• Changes that affect your tax credits

Provided by HM Revenue and Customs

Source:

DirectGov

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