[2025] UKUT 166 (AAC)

At the relevant time (August 2019), Article 7(1) of the No.23 Order stated that, except as provided by paragraphs (2)-(6), a person may not claim a tax credit on any date where, if that person claimed Universal Credit on that date, the provisions of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 listed in Schedule 2 to the No. 9 Order would come into force under Article 3(1) and (2)(a) to (c) of the No.23 Order in relation to that claim for Universal Credit.

For the claimant’s postcode, legacy benefit claims were stopped from 25 July 2018. It follows that, from 25 July 2018, he was prevented from claiming tax credits unless he came within one of the exceptions at Article 7(2)-(6). Financial support was available to him in the form of Universal Credit, but he has not made a claim to Universal Credit.

By Article 7(6) of the No.23 Order, the general prohibition against claims for tax credits does not apply where “a person has or had, or persons have or had, an award of child tax credit or working tax credit in respect of a tax year and that person or those persons makes or make (or is or are treated as making) a claim for that tax credit for the next tax year”.