Calculating TAS
Chargeable income
MSD MAP definition of the above
Salaries, wages, WFF, benefits, AS, DA, everything that's a plus in the account, pretty much.
Henceforth known as chargeable_income.
Allowable costs
Most of your ongoing regular living expenses (NOT FOOD) some odd ones, sad ones, and some fairly generous provisions IMO. Essential televisions? More policy bound, so read it.
This is allowable_costs, I'll keep going like this.
Disposable income
It's your cash monies, it's your luxury items. It's also your food, your smokes, your dog food and your car (unless you argued for an allowable cost for your car, in which case, nevermind). This is where your food fits in, in the formula. Unless you have diabetes or other special food needing diets (please see Disability Allowance).
chargeable_income - allowable_costs = disposable_income
You'll wanna write disposable income down.
Standard costs
Copy and paste from: MAP. Read it! Horse's mouth and all that.
Standard costs are the proportion of living costs that the client is expected to meet from their benefit or income.
Standard costs for a client receiving a main benefit
70% of the Net rate of main benefit (before any income abatement or other deduction) AND 70% of Family Tax Credit. See above link! (NoTE: Not yet sure if FTC includes the In Work Payment (IWP). I suspect not, so make your numbers worst case and don't include it.
Standard costs for a non-beneficiary
70% of the Net rate of Unemployment Benefit (before any income abatement or other deduction) AND 70% of Family Tax Credit. So, in the below calculation, use the UB rate for main_benefit_rate. Same caveat as above for FTC.
Which means
(main_benefit_rate \* 0.70) + (family_tax_credit \* 0.70) = standard_costs
Write this down too.
Deficiency
How broke you are. Opposite of a surplus. WINZ works it out so that the deficiency is expressed as a positive number. That is, if you are $50 short this week, you have a deficiency of +$50. Likewise, if you have $25 extra in your wallet, you have a deficiency of -$25. That is, you don't have a deficiency. I guess it makes the maths easier.
So anyway, remember: positive deficiency means that you have less money than you need to cover your costs.
standard_costs - disposable_income = deficiency
Write it down, and remember, a negative deficiency means you don't need TAS (yay!).
Upper limit
The upper limit is the maximum amount that can be paid for Temporary Additional Support unless the client is eligible for a disability exception amount. I'm ignoring the disability exception amount for now. It's in the link for the curious.
Upper limit for a client receiving a main benefit
30% of the Net rate of main benefit (before any income abatement or other deduction).
Upper limit for a client not receiving a main benefit
30% of the Net rate of Unemployment Benefit (before any income abatement or other deduction).
Which means
main_benefit_rate \* 0.30 = upper_limit
TAS eligibility
If deficiency > upper_limit, then the amount eligible is upper_limit, otherwise, it's the deficiency.
That's it.
DISCRETIONARY SUPPLEMENTS
TAS eligiblity is determined by a case manager, not a website. Don't trust this, read the links to MAP. Here's another one, bookmark it. Talk to lawyers or beneficiary unions and/or advocates for proper advice.