Home | Family | Parenting | Infants And Toddlers

UK Foster care fees, allowances and tax

By: Joe Webb

Read More About Infants and Toddlers

Fostering is a "professional" role for which foster carers are paid a fee.
An Independent Fostering Agency pays a weekly fee of approximately £400 for a foster child. This may be linked to the child's needs or the professional expertise the foster carer has.
If someone wants to work from home who has an interest in looking after children and young people and they are looking for a job that will fit around their own family commitments, fostering can be the ideal solution. The job description of a Foster carer is to look after children.
All foster carers are registered with and contracted to a local authority or voluntary or Independent agency. Foster carers are seen as professionals and receive a fee on a basis of being self employed.
The general rule is that taxable income is taken into account in calculating someone's Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit.
This includes someone's income from employment and self-employment, foster carers are classed as self employed. However, the current rules mean many UK foster carers now pay no tax on the money they earn from fostering.
If foster carers total foster care receipts are less than their qualifying amount, the profit from foster caring for both tax and tax credit will be nil.
Fostering allowances which qualify for tax relief are ignored:
currently up to £10,000 per year
£200 per week for each child under 11
£250 for each child 11 or over.
The rules about remunerative work are different for income support (IS) and jobseeker's allowance (JSA). In some cases a foster carer might be able to claim either Working Tax Credit or Income Support, Job Seeker's Allowance or both.
From 2003 foster carers are entitled to Home Responsibilities Protection which helps towards getting a basic State Pension. This will change in 2010, HRP will be replaced by weekly credits for parents and carers (including foster carers).
The credits will count towards a basic State Pension and an additional State Pension. If a foster carer reaches State Pension age on or after 6 April 2010, any years of Home Responsibilities Protection received will be converted to credits.
Foster carers are only entitled to claim Child Tax Credit for their own children, and for any other children for whom they are mainly responsible for provided they are not paid for looking after them.

Foster carers cannot claim CTC for children whom they foster whose accommodation and maintenance are paid for out of public funds.
The rules exclude a person from being treated as responsible for a child during any period when the child Is provided with, or placed in, accommodation under Children Act legislation.
This exclusion covers children staying with foster carers who get foster payments for them from the local authority or via an Independent Foster care agency.
Foster carers cannot get CTC for their foster children. They can however get CTC for any children of their own under the normal rules.
To qualify for working tax credit (WTC), a claimant must be in full-time paid work; called 'remunerative work' by the Revenue.
The number of hours required per week depends on the circumstances.
Someone counts as being in remunerative work if s/he is either employed or self-employed and working for payment or in expectation of payment.
Foster carers are treated as self-employed. So if someone is working as a foster carer, s/he can claim WTC if s/he is working for at least: 16 hours per week if s/he is responsible for a child.
Revenue guidance says that the hours of work a foster carer declares on her/his claim form should normally be accepted.
If someone does more than one job, the total hours are added together. So if a foster carer is doing work in addition to foster caring, the hours from the other work can be included. The Revenue says that someone who is self-employed can include hours spent providing services. Also those that are necessary for self-employment, such as cleaning the business and book-keeping.
Foster carers provide high quality care working in partnership with the local authority and Foster care Agency. Foster carers are expected to work with other professionals such as therapists, teachers or doctors. Fostering has become a career for thousands of Foster carers in the UK.
It is of paramount importance to choose the right fostering agency, there are over seven hundred in the UK. Simply Fostering, the UK national foster carer recruitment website provides help by answering questions and identifying the most suitable local fostering agencies with vacancies.
Simply Fostering help people interested in becoming foster carers to act on the Government's advice to 'contact more than one Fostering Agency if you are interested in a fostering career'.
For comprehensive and easy to understand information, help and advice, contact Annette or Joe at www.SimplyFostering.co.uk

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Joe is a friend of www.SimplyFostering.co.uk recruiting foster carers in the UK.

Please Rate this Article

 

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Infants and Toddlers Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Family | Parenting | Infants And Toddlers
Sign Up for a free account.
Our other websites
All about SEO
Beauty Tips Forum
Submit Articles
Member Login
Link Us
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
Sitemap
New Stuff
About Us
Developer
Good shopping portal
Link to Us
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

counter easy hit

Powered by Article Dashboard