If you receive the Universal Credit benefit, you may be wondering what might happen when you start or are about to start work.
It could be your first job since you applied, and you may worry that your benefit amount will decrease if you start and perform the job.
It’s worth keeping track of your real-time earnings in case you have a dispute over the course of your employment and need to continue claiming Universal Credit.
But you may not know what real-time earnings are or what litigation actually entails. Here’s what you need to know.
Universal Credit: What Is Real-Time Earnings, How Do You Bring a Dispute, and How Does It Affect Your Benefit Money?
If you apply for Universal Credit, you may get a job and need the benefit to supplement your income.
You must therefore tell the Department for Works and Pensions what you are earning in order to claim.
Read more: Universal credit: Can I have a benefit notice checked again?
Typically, at the end of your assessment period, you tell the Department of Works and Pensions what you’ve earned on your Universal Credit account.
However, this does not apply if your employer is a so-called “real-time information” employer. This is where employers electronically send details of their employees’ wages to HMRC when they pay them.
If it’s an employer with ‘real-time information’, HMRC will send information about your earnings – also known as ‘real-time earnings’ – to the Department for Work and Pensions to help them determine what award you should be entitled to from your Universal Credit entitlement.
However, you may be dissatisfied with the amount of income calculated by HMRC. In this case, you can raise a so-called “real-time salary dispute”. If you wish to do this, you can go to your Universal Credit account online and leave a note in your journal.
If you wish to do the same, you can request a “mandatory review” of your claim. You can request this if you think officers made a mistake or omitted important information, you disagree with the outcome the officers decided, or you simply want the decision to be reviewed.
To get a “mandatory review” you must request it within one month of receiving your decision letter.
To apply for one you can write to the address on your decision letter, you can fill out a form and send it back , or you can contact the Universal Credit hotline .
Stay up to date on day trips, nights out, shopping and more with our Daily What’s On email updates .