Carers Allowance for young carers, Tax Credits for Disabled people with children.

JCC

Hello,

My daughter receives full PIP both elements and ESA (Support Group) plus SDP.  

She lives alone now with her 16 year  old daughter and 11 year old son who have to give her some physical help on a daily basis. My daughter has  been told she could have some tax credits for her children or one of them at least.  Unless things have changed since the recent announcement about Universal Credit rollout my daughter lives in a full Universal Credit Area. To now claim the tax credits she would have to apply for Universal Credit.   Like many people she is too terrified to do so because of the poor system as it stands.

Can Carers Allowance be claimed by her children and if so will my daughter lose any of her current benefits?

Also, is there any way she could claim the tax credits - not sure what they are called - that disabled people may be eligible for ?  

Thank you very much

poppy123456

Hi,

Is there any reasons why she doesn't already claim child tax credits?

Full time students are unable to claim Carers allowance, unfortunately.

Also because she claims the SDP then if someone claimed Carers allowance for looking after her then she would lose this £64.30 per week.

As your daughter claims ESA then she won't be eligible to claim the disabled element of tax credits because this is for people that work.

JCC

Thank you very much for your reply which answers most of our queries.

We were  told that she could claim something from HMRC because of her disabilities, perhaps it wasn’t Tax Credits.  She does receive what I knew years ago as Family Allowance.  

poppy123456

Family allowance is now known as tax credits and has been for many years. She should also be claiming child benefit for each of her children. Both of these will continue to be paid if they remain in full time non advanced education until their 20th birthday, under tax credit rules.

JCC

Thank you very much.  My daughter and myself will have a sit down and see what is going on now.  She had been in a long term relationship with her working partner until 18 months ago and of course was under a different set of rules and regs.  I have to point out that I am very ancient and I have only ever known Family Allowance from the days when you weren’t eligible for your first child.??

poppy123456

The best thing she can do is make an appointment at her local advice centre for a full benefits check because it's very difficult to give advice on the internet without knowing all the details.