tease

Does anyone know if there is a waiting period after landing in NZ with PR before you get Child Credit - i thought we would be not entitled to any sort of govt money for 2 years

Many Thanks

Tease

nickcharliepark

Hi

The stuff that I have read in the ITA pack gives me the impression that you have to be resident for 2 years.

Nick and Charlie

sky

I keep saying, some expats are claiming it and they have only been here seven months so I would have a bash at claiming family assistance if I was you.
No harm trying is there and you should qualify for the in work payment too now.
If you earn under $45k you can apply for community service cards too for all the family and this will give you cheap Drs appointments at some practices and cheaper prescriptions.
Ring the inland revenue and they will give you the telephone numbers you need to talk to the right people. I got family assistance well before we had been here two years and it's just gone up and is well worth the trouble of applying for it.

Work and Income and the Inland revenue are two seperate departments and even though all the bumf tells you that depts communicate with each other this is rubbish. You will ring one number and they will tell you one thing and then ring the other and they will tell you something else ... so keep ringing and persevering cos you may get the wrong info at first.

newkiwi

not sure about the Child credit scheme, but often forms for things involving credit do not explicitly ask how long you have been in NZ. They do sometimes ask for "current address", how long you have been at current address, and "previous address". If you do rent short term after you arrive, move to a second NZ address, then both current and previous addresses are NZ addresses and nobody raises the question of how long you have been in the country.
But it may be useful to see what the forms ask re the Child Credit or any other forms of Credit. Of course you must never lie, serious trouble if you do, but you can only answer the questions they ask on teh application forms.

tease

Thanks guys for the responses

Andrew Cross

When you fill in the form online it asks if you are a NZ Citizen or if you are a Resident, if you are a Resident they ask the date you arrive in NZ. I have filled out the form online but I haven't lied. Dont want to have to pay back any money if it all comes out later that I shouldn't have gotten it. If I get it then great, but as I said before in a previous thread relating to this, I wont get it until I have been a Resident in NZ for 12 months (says the Inland Revenue) and I suppose they know???

Go for it and best of luck

sky

Ok fair enough, good luck guys