HMRC has warned that thousands of parents could miss out on hundreds of pounds from their tax credits by reporting their income incorrectly.
Often tax credits claimants who receive Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) do not realise that some of this pay should be deducted from their gross pay when their tax credits awards are calculated.
As well as SMP, parents can deduct payments they have received from statutory paternity, shared parental or adoption pay up to a value of £100 a week.
HMRC warned that by not deducting these payments from their income calculations they could be missing out on an average of £495 a year. It estimates that around 35,000 people could potentially be going short.
Although the deadline for tax credits renewals has now passed, Angela MacDonald, HMRC’s Director General for Customer Services, said: “We want to make sure all our customers get all the help they’re entitled to when they renew their tax credits.”
Tax credits help working families with targeted support and more than 65,000 customers this year have already used the app to renew their tax credits, compared to 38,411 customers in 2017.