specialist team for tax credits renewal (merged)

harry7075

If we renew in the normal way via post will our payments be stopped?

rightmadam

I hope not as well because of my working hours this is the way i will have to renew,by post!

jonnyb1978

I have been reading this with interest and i have to say is this just another attempt of wasting tax payers money. To make it easier for people!!! I mean who the hell organised this chaos.

Dodgy, unprofessional letters, customer service of TCO not knowing anything about this, telling people to ignore the letters. Its a joke. If your going to run a pilot scheme or new initiative at least brief the rest of the your staff afterall they are 'customer service'

The simple method is to send a letter out telling people a pilot scheme has been set to make things easier, outline how it works and indicate if they have any problems to ring the normal TCO number who can explain further. That way no suspicious and worried and they are put at ease with one simple phone call.

Its not rocket science.
I wonder how much has been wasted on this? Anothe example of tax credits imcompetance.

5823yil

I had the same yesterday when I renewed, I thought it was strange and put a post on today. At least im not the only one, lets hope my information with Equifax is correct?? as if not it means more stress trying to prove it is... Never had this before, I think they are changing the whole Tax Renewal thing...

mummy23angels

hi i received a letter too , i have 3 children, 1 is on dla and my husband is self employed works been pretty bad last yr with the recession and all . so i suppose our tax credits are quite high but are badly needed , does everybody on here have quite high tax credits ?? just wondering what's going on and how they choose who has to phone the new number sombody on here has put that the number i have is tax investigation unit , i've alway done everything by the book !! tax returns are always filed and paid in time . I have'nt yet received our renewal pack but will phone the number on the renewal letter once we have finished my husbands sa form .
this forum is great at least i know i'm not on my own to start with i thought something was wrong -hope not !!

TaxCreditHelp

Those of you who have received the Specialist Renewals letter have been selected as you have Tax Credit awards of over £8500. This isn't an attempt to investigate anyone it is merely Tax Credit Office giving additional help and support to our more vulnerable customers and checking all details on your Tax Credit award to make sure they are accurate and won't lead to an overpayment.

Some of you may have RECEIVED calls from the Specialist Renewals team. This is likely to be those of you who have renewed by post or by calling the main Tax Credit helpline to renew. This is just to check that all your details are correct before we remove the signal preventing the renewal from processing and finalising your award for 2009/2010.

And I believe the Equifax checks are due to a new scheme for added protection where each customer will receive a password for added security.

kaitlinsmummy

We dont receive anything near £8.5k, I was told from the lady at the specialist team when I rang it was random selection from NI numbers both the lady from TC main helpline and Specialist team told me this
I do have a password set up on file but Ive never been asked anything about Equifax checks

Nay_nay

Message to taxcredithelp, I am a single mum unfortunately,I rely so much on my taxcredits, one of the reasons that encourage me to start back work as I have the support by the goverment! I rang the main line to renew my tax creds as I do every year and asked why I haven't recieved my renewal pack,they said they sent on the 18th,I said I renew over the phone anyway but he said I am not allowed to do that as I haven't recieved the declaration. I remeber renewing last year and no one asked about the declaration.I thought when you renew over phone that that is a form of declaration.But I can renew for this year and give an estimate of my income. I don't understand how that is possible, please can you explain.My tax credits are over £8,500, should I have recieved a letter my the specialist team by now and even my pack?

TaxCreditHelp

The exercise is being carried out on a random sample of those Tax Credit awards where the Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit combined for the full year is over £8500... or has been around that amount at some point during 2009/2010.

And the reason we cannot take annual declaration (also known as annual renewal) details until you've received your declaration pack is because the screen (known as Capture Renewal) we require to process your annual declaration is not available to us until the pack has been dispatched. Specialist Renewal team letters are still in the process of being sent out but it's not guaranteed that you're award is part of the exercise. The annual renewal declaration packs are also still in the process of being sent out. These are sent out in priority order, focussing on those who receive the key state benefits of Income Support, Income Based Job Seeker's Allowance, Income Based Employment Support Allowance, and Pension Credit.

toomuchinfo

I received 'the letter' on Friday and it gave me a bit of a shock. I found it both mildly insulting and vaguely threatening but then I found this thread and was reassured by reading that lots of people got the same letter.
If the aim was to help, it wasn't a good start to scare us all. We all depend on our tax credits and even though I know there's nothing wrong with the info I provide, it's still stressful to think that there might be a delay in renewing.
I have a severely disabled child and my husband is self employed, but not earning very much and it seems that follows one of the patterns of people who got 'the letter'.
I got my renewal pack on Tuesday and phoned the special line on Wednesday. It was answered after a couple of rings by a very pleasant lady who asked if I had my declaration and asked for the number beginning witn six zeros on the bottom right hand corner of the front page. She put this number into the computer and said that she had to wait and see if she would be allowed to carry on, so maybe this number is important.
She sounded relieved when the computer said that she could carry on, and this gave me a bit of confidence that all was ok.
The claim carried on in the usual way, with a warning about giving the correct info and a remark about the possibility of passing me to another department if necessary.
We then went through figures and circumstances etc and then she said that was it and I'd get the letters through in 2/3 weeks. Fingers crossed that that is it!
I think if you get 'the letter', you should ring the number provided otherwise you might just prolong the agony.