Student Loans... income assessment

[Solocle]

A very murky one indeed.
Had my household income assessed as £62K+.
This is actually because my father was working out in the USA. In particular, during the tax year being assessed, he moved out there. BAE systems secondment to Lockheed Martin to work on the F35. He was given allowances for furnishing the apartment during this time. As such, "income" looks inflated, but actually it isn't income. It's just how the company does expenses - expenses related to moving out there.

I've already had a response to the SLC level 1 complaint. They say of the relevant legislation (Education (Student Support) Regulations 2011):

SLC said:

As you can see from the above, the income must be taken into consideration of a student parent's spouse whether or not they are living together. The only case in which we would not look at this person's income would be if they were merely a partner (not a spouse) and not living together as if they were the spouse, or if they were separated.
The term "separated" is not defined in The Education (Student Support) Regulations 2011 however, we have checked with the Department for Education (DfE) who advised that the policy intention is that parents should be considered separated if their relationship has (irretrievably) broken down.

I would question the definition of household income. The here is that the expenses were under tax, and tax equalisation was applied - international tax law...
Also, seeing as how the relevant legislation doesn't actually define seperated, I would take issue with the fact that they do not consider the added costs of running two homes - not least American car insurance without any NCD over there...

Fortunately, I have an easy way out. Current tax year assessment. However, if the secondment hadn't finished early, I would be well and truly sd, and others won't be so lucky.

[Solocle]

Not grants, maintenance loan. If it went through as it is, it would mean about £1400 extra financial burden on my parents per year. Their income just isn't that high, and it's unfair to expect them to pay more than somebody else who is a mid-level manager at Tesco earning the same amount because we were making huge sacrifices for the good of the country and the company covered additional expenses from running two homes. We weren't being made rich.

It would be like military personnel stationed overseas having to pay for accommodation. Then that being considered income. I know the US military can end up with a rent allowance. But the UK military can subsidise housing in the UK, actually reducing rent expenditure! The fact is that my father, while working for a private company, was working on a defense project.

Also, I'm not confident of SLC correctly combining the two pays. They may have thought that it was two independent pays - it wasn't. I don't understand tax equalization, but it's st complicated and not as simple as 2+2.

[Solocle]

98elise said:

Its not grants or free money. If you want to get a loan then want to know how much money your parents earn. If its "too much" the amount you can borrow is reduced (i.e. your parents should pay).

Precisely. As they assessed it, it's £3912 per year (tuition fees are payed for all the time). If your parent(s) earn <£25000 p/a, it's £8430 p/a.
So my parents are being expected to fork out at least £4518 p/a. The same as Lord Sugar's children. We're just not big earners that way/

[Solocle]

R8Steve said:

What sacrifices?
What country?

Well, living apart for a year (meant to be 3) was a huge strain on family relations. I only saw my father 3x a year, a year younger than that would normally happen from uni. More of an issue, the same went for my mother.
As for country, it's not just one country. The F-35 program benefits the USA, the UK, Italy and the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Turkey, Israel and Singapore. In order of level of partnership in the program.

[Solocle]

drdino said:

Boeing is using some interesting ways to promote the JSF program.

My father is involved in the program, writing software. I'm not trying to promote it, I'm just really pd off that my family was very nearly burdened financially because of a defense project's requirements.

[Solocle]

R8Steve said:

I'm struggling to imagine a seconded systems engineer for BAE working on a trillion dollar project in a foreign country making the same as a middle manager in Tesco.

We barely touch the upper income tax band.

So, yes, the base salary of a Tesco Store manager is £50,000. My father barely touches £40,000.

Edited by Solocle on Wednesday 12th July 12:42

[Solocle]

xxChrisxx said:

Firstly; pursuing an argument that they were 'seperated' is a non starter and will only serve to confuse the situation. In context of relationships it means they don't live together and offer no/limited mutual financial support.

The most obvious argument is to show that the year was an outlier; based on non-standard circumstances. Previous years pay, information from the company outlining the terms of the secondment and that notional salary is the same.

Also even at 40k household income, you aren't going to get the full maintenance loan anyway.

True, but the £1400 should cover utilities. The £3900 only covers basic rent. My phase 1 complaint made it clear the year was an outlier, and they do have a procedure for such circumstances (unlike a long while back when my Mum's father passed away during her A level year, and his income was the basis of grants). Of course, while I have the ultimate recourse of the secondment having ended, I am concerned for anybody who doesn't have that. To make matters worse, when SLC sent a representative to my school, that representative assured me that my father's income wouldn't be included.

[Solocle]

tigger1 said:

I know I'm lucky with my work-life balance, but I wouldn't commute an hour up the road for a 40k salary, nevermind live 5000 miles away from the wife.

Putting it like that though, I can see the upside.

Good luck with the SLC.

Thanks, the £40K salary is my father's standard salary. One of the benefits of the arrangement was flights to Florida. The main benefit was in terms of job opportunity though - there was going to be a set of redundancies this side of the pond. Of course, a nice redundancy payment at the time could have covered my parents for a time and entitled me to the full loan amount... I'm pretty sure that there are ways of playing the system, and it's this sort of thing that leads to people doing just that.

[Solocle]

berlintaxi said:

So nothing to do with the good of the country more about keeping his job then.

There were several things. There was a benefit to job security, there was the improved progress of the project. A lot of things.

[Solocle]

Drumroll said:

Welcome to the real world. There are always winners and losers on any system like this. When we first applied for our daughter's student loan we had to submit the previous year's P60 This included my wifes income although not a great deal it did push us over the threshold.The thing was she finished working later that year.

If you are so concerned about being a "burden" on your family you can always delay going to university and go out and earn some money. Not only will it give you your own money it also moves the tax assessment on one year for your parents.

Something else that may come as shock to you your father didn't have to go to America it was his choice. Please don't paint him as some sort of hero ("for the good of the country")

Edited by Drumroll on Wednesday 12th July 18:30

Well, there's no way I'm going to try and delay an offer from Oxford. Again, things are back to normal, so I have an easy way out. I'm just calling out the system and pointing out its flaws.

[Solocle]

superlightr said:

What are you accepted at Oxford for?

Maths and Computer Science. Hardly a light course, it's about 66% of one and 66% of the other.

caelite, I love multi-monitor set ups! Working on coursework at school, I would sometimes take my laptop in. Cue plugging one of the school monitors into my laptop. And yeah, that situation with an ongoing breakup is really awful, especially when it comes to SLC at the same time.

And, as previously mentioned, the accomodation matters because it was part of the job. We went from living in one house to living in the same house (not even a council tax reduction, because the council are a load of cretins), and dad having an apartment in the states. So our total expenditure went through the roof - just for basic stuff. As such, it's hardly fair for that to be considered as additional income. Furthermore, at that time, there were thousands of dollars spent on furniture, also from company allowances. Most of it was given away at the end of the secondment.

[Solocle]

Because, at least at the time, my father would be away from the home for 3 years. He might be back for a holiday... but no more than two weeks in a year. Their argument was that he'd be returning to it. Frankly, it would have been much easier (and not illegal) if my parents had technically divorced, then remarried after the secondment. That's one way of giving the system two fingers.

[Solocle]

Yeah, the initial plan was actually it was quite likely that my mum would stay over here to see my through A levels, then move out there to join my dad. We were seriously considering the expat route and in that case my dad wouldn't be returning to my home address. As it was, things didn't work out that way.

[Solocle]

dacouch said:

Red Devil said:

Indeed. Maybe at the end of the Maths component he might be able to make the total of the percentages what it should be...

Six of one, half a dozen of the other

I can assure you it was for effect.