tax credits urgent help needed.

sandraroffey

what a wonderful mothers day for my poor daughter: today - yes sunday - tax credits phoned her and told her that they wanted to talk to her about the overpayment and they wanted it now!!! £3,300!!!!!

they have apparently sent previous letters but this(these) overpayments go back to year ending april 2006 and april 2007. she remembers something about this when she was still with her partner and thought that an amount was coming off of the awards she has had since then. but apparently not.

the very rude and intimidating gentleman then asked her for a credit card or bank card to take it all off of there and then!!! it apparently cant be taken off of her award she gets now, because it is a new separate claim; the overpayments were made on claims made jointly with her now ex partner.

she has got to get back to them before 8pm tomorrow night (monday) with a firm and definate payment plan, or it is going to the legal department 'and they will just take you to court'.

she is a single mum of twins, a full time student with no spare income whatsoever and she cannot begin to imagine, and neither can I, how such a large overpayment can have been made without it being picked up on, when new claims were made each year, and income information that was relevant at the time, was given to the tax credits people.

any advice here, and urgently please, would be hugely appreciated. i know that tax credits are often a law unto themselves. someone i know of had tax credits chasing them for an alledged overpayment of over 9k!!! they fought it for over a year and it turned out in the end that there wasnt an overpayment at all.tax credits had slipped up again.

thank you all in advance.

PrincessDonna2009

I would get her to check this, with the paperwork she has herself or get someone to check it for her, as you say they can sometimes be wrong.

They can't demand payment like that, you can get a payment plan set up with them each month and if she is on a low income like you have said they just pay something like £5-£10 a month and that way it stops them taking legal action for it as she is offering to pay something.

Hope this helps

sandraroffey

the first thing she is going to do is ask them for copies of all her award notices.

she is worried that she hasnt proof of her ex partners income over that time. she (and he) is with a different bank; he wont have kept anything during the move out (not something he does!!) nor will he have the payslips. he is now with a different employer as well.

whitewing

Tell her to speak to her MP first thing Monday.

Also, www.taxcreditcasualties.org.uk is useful

sinstar

When she asks for copies of her award notices she should also ask for an explanation of the overpayment and take a note of what the helpline advisor says, in case another one tells her something different in the future. She should also ask for a written explanation of how the overpayment occurred.

If she wants to dispute the overpayment, the tax credit office will suspend recovery of it. But they wont do that until she actually disputes, if she wants some time to figure out what she is going to do and correlate together any evidence she needs for her dispute, she should call up the recovery department and tell them she is planning to dispute and wants them to suspend recovery. There is no guarantee they will agree though.

Also it would be helpful to keep in mind the Tax Credits Helpline and the Tax Credit Office/Overpayment Recovery department are separate and helpline staff are very limited in what they can actually do/pass on to the TCO/recovery department.

sandraroffey

she is worried that if she disputes formally, are they likely to stop paying the payments they are making at the moment?? that would certainly put her in very severe financial hardshp./

whitewing

I am disputing a 2006 overpymnt and my tax credits (new award started in Jan 2008) have not stopped.

sinstar

Her current tax credits wouldn't be stopped, as they have said they can't recover this overpayment from them because it is a separate claim. She is still eligible for and entitled to the payments she is getting just now and this overpayment wont change that.

It really would be in her best interests to formally dispute the overpayment if she thinks she has reason to. The best thing she can do is make sure she acknowledges all communication regarding the overpayment, because they are more likely to listen to her side of the story, consider the dispute etc if they can see she is not just trying to get out of it and avoid the issue.

Before she can even decide whether to dispute though she needs to find out why the overpayment occurred. If after the explanation she admits she was paid money she wasn't entitled to, but feels like she shouldn't have to pay it back because she thinks she had no way of knowing she was being overpaid - ie. she met all of her responsibilities and HMRC didn't meet theirs, she would dispute the overpayment. But if she disagrees with the overpayment because she thinks she WAS entitled to the money, then she would appeal which is different - an appeal is when you disagree with the amount of the overpayment because you disagree with their decision on how much you were even entitled to.

She will probably find this leaflet useful -

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/leaflets/cop26.pdf

whitewing

Thanks sinstar - an important distinction as it's different forms. I am actually appealing (not disputing).

sandraroffey

thank you all so much. i will talk to her about this in the morning. i will get her to disute it at the same time as requesting the copies of her awards notices.

if, at the end of the day, she HAS been overpaid, can she still make an offer for small payments??

someone told her that you can have overpayments written off if your ncome is low and it would cause harrdship to pay it back.

[Deleted User]

Whilst formally disputing an overpayment the overpayment recovery is temporarily suspended.

The first thing she must do is call the recovery dept and ask for a temporary suspension until he has received the dispute form.

They may or may not do this - I have no personal experience with the recovery dept but I do know that they have the powers to do it.

She will then need to dispute the overpayment straight away - even if she doesnt have the full details as yet.

Even if the overpayment dispute is rejected she CAN still dispute again if she has fresh evidence.

Whilst the initial dispute is being investigated she can be getting on with gathering of information regarding the full and proper dispute.

She will need to ask TCO for a written explanation of the overpayment.

There is a timescale of aroung 10-12 weeks for this as TCO may need to locate all relevant paperwork and computer files that are in storage.

Once she actually has the full details she will need to find out if she actually has grounds for a dispute. If she has no grounds for a dispute she will need to contact the recovery dept to arrange to pay back the overpayment.

She can ask them to go through an income & expenditure list to come to an agreement to pay back the overpayment.

If there are grounds for a dispute she can submit the new dispute (if the original quick dispute has failed).
Do not be put off if the priginal dispute states "you cannot appeal against this decision".
Technically you are not appealing - you are disputing with fresh information.

PLEASE think carefully though - if it is obvious that your daughter has been overpaid and TCO are quite obviously not to blame she should ask for the income & expenditure details o be reviewed straight away and arrange the recovery.
There is no point in wasting her own time and the time/resources of an already stretched TCO.

HTH