LITRG find a problem with the HMRC campaign to improve take-up of Working Tax Credit among people without children.

Introduction

HMRC have launched a take-up campaign for Working Tax Credit (WTC) by targeting those people without children. (See HM Revenue & Customs' article on TaxationWeb - The Taxman Wants to Up Your Wages). This is the primary group where ignorance of the rules is high and the take-up low. However, the HMRC campaign threatens to exclude people who might qualify, at the same time as misleading others about which year’s income is important for WTC. This is very disappointing.

The main HMRC campaign is on the Directgov website at Working Tax Credit: Could You Do with an Extra £140 a Month?

Further Information 

For those readers who would like to have a more detailed explanation as to why the HMRC advice is misleading, then please see LITRG's article Bad Start for HMRC's Push to Increase Tax Credits Take-Up.

Bad Example? 

Also, while browsing the Directgov launch document you might care to notice that HMRC provide an example of someone working 30 hours a week and earning £8,940 a year. This might be a problem as such behaviour would now be an offence under the national minimum wage legislation. It is ironic that HMRC are the government department responsible for enforcing that legislation, so it will be interesting to see if they prosecute themselves for inciting employers to break the minimum wage legislation.

Article Added Friday, 16 October 2009 | 1798 Hits

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