TCM0114060 - Eligibility - entitlement: Child or young person - excluded from family (Info)
The circumstances where a child or young person is not included in the family are as follows
Young person receives Employment and Support Allowance or Incapacity Benefit
A young person can not be included in a claim for Child Tax Credit (CTC) when they are in receipt of Incapacity Benefit (IB) in their own right. This is because the customer is no longer considered responsible for that child or young person.
Note: Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) replaced Incapacity Benefit for new customers from 27/10/2008. A child or young person can’t be included in a claim for CTC when they are in receipt of ESA in their own right. As with Incapacity Benefit, this is because the customer is no longer considered responsible for that young person.
Note: ‘Transitional Protection Cases’ - This exclusion doesn’t apply to families who have had entitlement to CTC up to and including 05/04/2004 in respect of children or young people who are also in receipt of IB in their own right.
These families benefit from transitional protection and continue to receive CTC for those children or young people until either
- they leave full-time education or an approved training course
- they reach the age of 20
- there is a break of more than eight weeks in the young person’s entitlement to IB
or
- there is any break in entitlement to CTC for the young person.
Custodial sentence
A child or young person can’t be treated as part of the family if a custodial sentence has been passed on them
- for life
- without limit of time
- of detention during Her Majesty’s pleasure
- of detention during the pleasure of the Secretary of State (in Northern Ireland)
- for a term or period of more than four months.
On remand
A young person under 18 in England and Wales are treated as being ‘looked after’ if they are remanded in local authority accommodation. The local authority is therefore responsible for accommodating and providing the cost of the accommodation. Once the period on remand has ceased, normal responsibility conditions will apply.
Care and adoption
A child or young person who has been placed in care or adopted by a family can be included as part of the family unless one of the following conditions apply
- a child or young person can’t be part of the family if they’ve been provided with, or placed in, accommodation in England and Wales under Part III of the Children Act 1989, in Scotland, Part II of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 by virtue of a requirement in a child assessment order within the meaning of section 35 of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011, a child protection order within the meaning of section 37 of that Act, a compulsory supervision order within the meaning of section 83 of that Act or an interim compulsory supervision order within the meaning of section 86 of that Act or in Northern Ireland Part IV of the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995
and
- the cost of that child’s accommodation or maintenance is borne wholly or partly out of public funds
or
- where the child or young person is being looked after by a Local Authority and has been placed for adoption by that authority in the home of a person proposing to adopt him
and
- a Local Authority is making a payment in respect of the child or young person’s accommodation and / or maintenance for England and Wales under section 23 of the Children Act 1989 (section 22C(10) of that Act from April 2011 for England) or for Scotland section 26 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (now in regulation 33 of the Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009) or for Northern Ireland Article 27 of the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995.
Note: In Northern Ireland, references to a Local Authority should be substituted with references to an authority (within the meaning of Article 2 of that Order).
Note: where a child or young person is placed by the local authority for adoption, fostering or kinship care and the customer gets no payment from public funds or gets payment from public funds but not for the child’s accommodation and/or maintenance, the customer adopting, fostering or providing the kinship care for the child is normally responsible for them.
Child or young person with a child of their own
A young person who claims and receives Child Tax Credit in their own right (whether in a single or joint claim) for a child they are responsible for cannot be treated as being the responsibility of any person.
Young person in receipt of Working Tax Credit {#IDAZOMQG} or Universal Credit
A young person who claims and receives Working Tax Credit or Universal Credit in their own right (whether in a single or joint claim) cannot be treated as being the responsibility of any person.
Long-term hospitalisation
A child or qualifying young person can still be treated as normally living with a family if they are a patient in long-term care unless, during that time, the family ceases to have main responsibility for the child or young person.
Note: For further information see the Tax Credit Technical Manual.
Young person lives with their partner
A young person who lives with their partner, where their partner doesn’t also meet the relevant education or approved training conditions, shall be treated as not being the responsibility of any person.
Note: This does not apply to anyone already receiving CTC for a young person on the day before 1 September 2008.
Note: When considering if this applies you must take into account the stability of the relationship between the Qualifying Young Person and the other person. It must be more than just staying temporarily with the other person, there must be some attributes to show they are living together as if they are married
Death of a child
A deceased child can still be treated as a member of the family for the period of eight weeks immediately following the date of death.
A deceased young person can still be treated as a member of the family for the period of eight weeks immediately following the date of death or up the date on which he or she would have attained the age of 20, whichever is earlier.
This only applies where the family was (or would have been if they had made the claim) entitled to CTC for the child or young person immediately before the death.