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Inland Revenue

Tax Policy

Consultation
Last updated 22 May 2025
Closing date 3 July 2025

Status Current

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

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 month.

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: