specialist team for tax credits renewal (merged)

2010pojo

We fall into the over 8,500 bracket with WTC & CTC only & received the letter to renew with the specialist team, which I did last Tuesday, I had to confirm who lived with us & give details from the P60, the lady was very helpful as I wasnt very organised with the paperwork.

I phoned the normal Tax Credit number on Friday to check if the claim had been processed & was told yes & given our new payment details (slight increase in CTC & decrease in WTC) & that we would receive the new award notice shortly.

Is this it now for this year or should we expect to hear more the specialist team???

Numptytoes

shammy123 wrote: »

hey guys this new thing is defo an investigation line. just got off phone with them and we have been picked randomly to be investigated. taxcredithelp is giving out wrong information. If any of you have anything to hide then get it fixed before you call them. make sure you can substantiate evry bit of information. otherwise the inevitable will happen.
this part is directed at taxcredithelp, if you are who you claim to be, why did you not just be truthfull and inform people on here to the fact that this is just the new name for the investigation team?
eventually the truth will out, just a shame that some gov wrkers try to hide it and hope all will be well, another classic example of old labor waste of money and excuses for kepping civil servants on the payroll

So why are so many people saying it isn't an investigation line then? Surely they cannot investigate 400,000 cases? That seems wrong to me! They cannot suspect all of those people, I think you are barking up the wrong tree myself. I know loads of people who have had to use the Specialist Adviser renewal service and have had no problems at all, it just seems to be taking longer than the usual renewal way.

Numptytoes

2010pojo wrote: »

We fall into the over 8,500 bracket with WTC & CTC only & received the letter to renew with the specialist team, which I did last Tuesday, I had to confirm who lived with us & give details from the P60, the lady was very helpful as I wasnt very organised with the paperwork.

I phoned the normal Tax Credit number on Friday to check if the claim had been processed & was told yes & given our new payment details (slight increase in CTC & decrease in WTC) & that we would receive the new award notice shortly.

Is this it now for this year or should we expect to hear more the specialist team???

Thanks for this information, I have yet to ring yet. What will I expect when I do? Do they just go through the renewal in the usual way?

shammy123

mztz wrote: »

hope you dont mind me asking,but did you get a letter from the specialist team? and did it have any reference on your letter?when you rung them,what did they ask you?

yep got the letter, i previously rang the helpline and renewed, then got the letter and after conflicting veiws here i decided to call and sure enough there was a hold . i gave them the same info and after a bit of digging it seemed that this was the investigation team which had been given a new name so as not to alert people. they do have to justify their numbers of people employed and what they do so they have set this up as a way of showing that the resources to hanfd are being utilised to protect the public purse.
seems to me they are turning into an income support/ui benefits type structure where they will come down heavy on everyone

oh and the lady i spoke to would not confirm that tc had been finalised, just that she would look into it and if they need to ask anymore questions they would phone me.

shammy123

Numptytoes wrote: »

So why are so many people saying it isn't an investigation line then? Surely they cannot investigate 400,000 cases? That seems wrong to me! They cannot suspect all of those people, I think you are barking up the wrong tree myself. I know loads of people who have had to use the Specialist Adviser renewal service and have had no problems at all, it just seems to be taking longer than the usual renewal way.

its not a case of suspecting anyone, i dont think, but more that they need to be seen doing something thus random selection and nothing to do with what level of tc one is getting. it appears they will be taking the stance of income support/ui benefits whereby you have to be scrutinised constantly for what they give you, and if you dont comply they will stop the funds

Numptytoes

shammy123 wrote: »

its not a case of suspecting anyone, i dont think, but more that they need to be seen doing something thus random selection and nothing to do with what level of tc one is getting. it appears they will be taking the stance of income support/ui benefits whereby you have to be scrutinised constantly for what they give you, and if you dont comply they will stop the funds

And I think that is only right. Tax credits are a joke, they have been given too freely for too long. I know for a fact (from information from people who work there) that they don't do checks on income, childcare, marital status etc. I bet there are a lot of people who have been able to get away with it.

shammy123

also having dealt with ui/income support in the past, their procedures are almost identical now. am quite surprised the media hasnt picked up on this yet

shammy123

Kyresa wrote: »

Aye. I was asked who I lived with, what were their names, what days I worked on etc etc.

Certainly sounded more like an investigation to me at the time!

Perhaps the "it's if you have a high award" is a smokescreen, because certainly a fair few of us have said it's not the case for us yet that part has been conveniently ignored!

have to agree with you as i get 4700, so the high award is a nonsense. like i said earlier, people are being given incorrect/misleading info so as to hide the truth. also i hope you all understand that this is only my opinion based on my personal experiance and convo with the new dept.

shammy123

Numptytoes wrote: »

And I think that is only right. Tax credits are a joke, they have been given too freely for too long. I know for a fact (from information from people who work there) that they don't do checks on income, childcare, marital status etc. I bet there are a lot of people who have been able to get away with it.

i do agree with you in that this should only be available to those in need, but do the ends justify the means? or do we just let them terrorise the innocent majority in the hopes of catching a few bad apples

Numptytoes

So has anyone on here contacted the Specialist people and had their claim dealt with quickly? Last year i did my renewal and had my final award back within 4 days!