Empowering families: Increasing certainty and preventing debt in the Working for Families scheme

Overview

The Government wants to hear public views on a set of proposals for improving Working for Families. The intention is to make Working for Families more accurate which would help prevent families from going into debt.

One of the main proposals is to make improvements to the way Working for Families entitlements are calculated. This would involve switching from asking people to estimate their income for the year ahead, to instead calculating entitlements by using actual income earned and over a shorter period, such as a quarter.

The full discussion document below also seeks feedback on some aspects of families’ experiences as they move between a benefit and work.

Making a submission

To help make the submission process easier, Inland Revenue has produced a set of documents to help you. These are:

• An information sheet, which summarises the full discussion document.

• A short set of summarised submission questions seeking feedback which focus on the topics of most interest to families receiving Working for Families.

• You may also be interested in a set of answers to frequently asked questions about the proposals.

What happens next

We will acknowledge receipt of your comments immediately, and reply in more detail before the item is finalised.