In this section:

Tax Credits: Public statistics

In this section you will find links to statistics about the current tax credits system as well as historical statistics on the old Working Families Tax Credit and Disabled Person’s Tax Credit.

HMRC Tax Credit Statistics

HMRC publish statistics about tax credits awards in two sets. The first set covers provisional awards and provides a snap shot at a specific date, the second set covers finalised awards for entitlement years. It is the finalised award statistics that show the overpayment figures for each year.

Provisional awards

2003 - July | October
2004 - January | April | July | December
2005 - April | December
2006 - April | December
2007 - April | December
2008 - April | December
2009 - April | December
2010 - April | December
2011 - April | December
2012 - April

Finalised awards

Geographical Statistics

Provisional awards

2003 - July
2004 - January | December
2005 - April | December
2006 - April | December
2007 - April | December
2008 - April | December
2009 - April | December
2010 - April | December
2011 - April | December
2012 - April

Finalised awards

Take up Rates for WTC & CTC

The following statistics show the take up rates for WTC and CTC for the tax years 2003-2004 to 2009-2010. The take-up rates are the proportion of those entitled to tax credits who claim them, and are estimated using a combination of administrative and survey data according to the HMRC website. The 2007-2008, 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 figures have been expanded to include child benefit.

Error and Fraud statistics

The following links will take you to the HMRC error and fraud statistics which are compiled using the random enquiry programme which is ‘an annual statistical enquiry run by HMRC designed to measure levels of error and fraud in finalised tax credits awards’.

Other useful statistics

Child poverty statistics - This link takes you to child poverty statistics to 2007 based on the national indicator 116.
Small area statistics - these statistics through to 2008 show the number of families benefiting from CTC and WTC in each small area and the number of children in these families. The tables include out of work families with children who receive the same level of support as provided by CTC, but where it is paid as child allowances in Income Support or income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (IS/JSA).
Household income distribution of tax credits families - These statistics show, for April 2010, current year incomes (rather than incomes used for tax credits purposes) declared by families.
The Tax Benefit Model Tables - This is an annual publication designed to illustrate the weekly financial circumstances of a selection of hypothetical local authority and private tenants.
The Poverty site commentary on ‘In receipt of tax credits’ - This draws from HMRC and Family Resource survey data and links to other reports and statistic
The Family Resources Survey - Produced by DWP, this is a continuous survey of private households to provide information to DWP.

Historical statistics -

Working Families Tax Credit and Disabled Person’s Tax Credit

Rates and Thresholds - Here you will find an overview of the rates of WFTC and DPTC from April 1999 – April 2003 when they were replaced by the current tax credits system.
Disabled Person’s Tax Credit statistics - A list of quarterly statistics for DPTC from October 1999 to January 2003.
Working Families Tax Credit statistics - A list of quarterly statistics for WFTC from October 1999 to January 2003.
Geographical statistics for WFTC ad DPTC - A series of geographical statistics for WFTC and DPTC covering May 2001 to November 2002.
Take-up rates for WFTC - Statistics showing the take-up rate for WFTC for the tax years 2000-2001, 2001-2002 and 2002-2003.

Updated 26 April 2012

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