Tax Credit Overpayment HELP!!

sandra120000

Can someone please help. My friend has been claiming Tax credit and recently got told that she has been overpayed. She is now having to pay the overpayment back in instalments which are being taken out of her current award.

The thing is this she did not know that she had been overpayed - she had rung both the tax credit office and also spoken to a person at her local Job centre who was helping her get back to work who told her how to fill in the tax form and told her that what she had done was correct.

She then had a visit from the tax people and got told that she had been overpayed. She did not know what to do and so did not do anything and so now they are taking back the money in instalments. Is there anything that she can do at all, as this is causing her and her family financial hardship, can she write to the Inland revenue and ask them to look at reducing the amount that she has to pay back at all.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

Fran

I doubt she has a leg to stand on regarding other people helping her fill in the form whether over the phone or in person as she presumably wrote in the answers and signed it. She could try though if she saw a Jobcentre person who went through the form with her and told her what to put (and she put what they said). Also IR, I believe calls are recorded, but if the info she put is not correct there's not a lot she can do. (Also the length of time that complaining would take wouldn't help her present situation.) Initially she should put in a complaint to IR re phone call and Jobcentre re their advice. She should check with Citizens Advice Bureau or similar what if any recourse there is in her situation if they put out wrong or misleading info. If she didn't inform them of changes of circumstances that would not be anyone else's fault. She could try asking for repayments to be reduced, no harm in trying, I'm not sure of the minimum. This is one of these awful traps that anyone on Tax Credits can fall into every year and have to live on less money than they thought.

sunflower_2

i was overpaid but was my own fault - i didnt check my figures on annual declaration

they have stopped the remainder of my CTC until april to clear the overpayment of WTC, this has left me in a state

i did ask for them to reduce the amount they are claiming back (more than £40 a week) but they said by the time they looked into it - april would be here and I would start getting payments again :mad:

am not sure if i am doing the right thing - but i cannot allow myself to be in this situation ever again, not with having a child to support on my own

i have applied to increase my hours at work from April and am cancelling my WTC claim for next year !
at least then I can earn as much as i want/possibly can - without worrying about it

will miss the free dental treatment/prescriptions etc...

Fran

sunflower wrote:

am not sure if i am doing the right thing - but i cannot allow myself to be in this situation ever again, not with having a child to support on my own

i have applied to increase my hours at work from April and am cancelling my WTC claim for next year !
at least then I can earn as much as i want/possibly can - without worrying about it

will miss the free dental treatment/prescriptions etc...

Sunflower, you shouldn't be doing this!!:eek:

You need that money to live on; why deny youself money that you are entitled to for yourself and child? It's just a matter of declaring every income change etc. At least this next year you will know a bit more about the system and you can get help filling in forms if you need to.

Please don't deny yourself cash that you are entitled to!!!!!

sunflower_2

hi Fran

thanks 4 reply

i will still be claiming the CTC, albeit not much of it

judging by the "entitledto" website, the amount i will earn by increasing my hours will mean i wont qualify for WTC.

am prob not going to be that much better off at first - but I will have piece of mind
at least i wont have to worry about any overtime or bonus payments i receive

and i can work as many hours as i possibly can to earn more and be able to treat my son now n again

i decided that it was about time my ex took some responsibility for regular childcare.
so i have told him he has to organise taking him to school and picking him up 2 days a week !

this whole situation has just got me down so much
i know what i am like - every month i would be getting myself into a panic
the IR more or less said that they would be keeping a close eye on me!

i do hope i am making the right decision...

thanks again

x

akh43

I have been appealing against an overpayment from Tax Credits since july/august last year. They had already taken back the overpayment over a three month period, which started before I even knew I had been overpaid! (it was just over £300)

I appealed as I had informed them several times that they had overpaid me and I felt the mistake was theirs not mine. They took the overpayment back as "I ought reasonably to have known I had been overpaid".

After sending several lengthy letters and copies of all previous correspondence relating to the overpayment to them, my appeal was turned down at first, it took about 3 months to be told this.

I then wrote again asking for a reconsideration and the reasons for my appeal being turned down and yesterday got a letter from them. (I would have accepted the appeal being turned down had it not been for my sister who is in the know and told me to persevere)

They have now admitted they made the mistake and have repaid the money back to me!! Is this a first?

Fran

akh,

That's good news! It is worth appealling these things, even though you have to wait months for the outcome.

zeryx

sunflower wrote:

i was overpaid but was my own fault - i didnt check my figures on annual declaration

they have stopped the remainder of my CTC until april to clear the overpayment of WTC, this has left me in a state

i did ask for them to reduce the amount they are claiming back (more than £40 a week) but they said by the time they looked into it - april would be here and I would start getting payments again :mad:

am not sure if i am doing the right thing - but i cannot allow myself to be in this situation ever again, not with having a child to support on my own

i have applied to increase my hours at work from April and am cancelling my WTC claim for next year !
at least then I can earn as much as i want/possibly can - without worrying about it

will miss the free dental treatment/prescriptions etc...

If you were overpaid in 2003 to 2004 the max that can be reclaimed from 2004 to 2005 payments is 25% if you are receiving WTC. However, I guess you would have been paid too much at the start of 2004 - 2005 tax year if you did not update your income and it was above the banding you had been given. This would account for the fact your payments have now dropped a lot - they can only pay the entitlement for the year, if you received too much in the first part of the tax year you will find your payments are reduced accordingly and then any overpayment from the last tax year will be deducted from that.

Try calling the Tax Credit Helpline and asking them if that is the reason that your payments have been reduced.

zeryx

sunflower wrote:

hi Fran

thanks 4 reply

i will still be claiming the CTC, albeit not much of it

judging by the "entitledto" website, the amount i will earn by increasing my hours will mean i wont qualify for WTC.

am prob not going to be that much better off at first - but I will have piece of mind
at least i wont have to worry about any overtime or bonus payments i receive

and i can work as many hours as i possibly can to earn more and be able to treat my son now n again

i decided that it was about time my ex took some responsibility for regular childcare.
so i have told him he has to organise taking him to school and picking him up 2 days a week !

this whole situation has just got me down so much
i know what i am like - every month i would be getting myself into a panic
the IR more or less said that they would be keeping a close eye on me!

i do hope i am making the right decision...

thanks again

x

You will be entitled to WTC until your income reaches around £15,000

irs101

Sunflower

Stop! You're doing the wrong thing - or at least it isn't possible to do what you think you are doing.

WTC & CTC are a single claim - the only way you can claim CTC only is if you are not working. So you can't withdraw your WTC claim without a) giving up work or b) withdrawing your whole claim for tax credits.

CTC is income related too anyway, so you can still fall into the same problem as you have this year.

The only thing you can sensibly do is leave your claim as it is, but report every single change in your income or circumstances and keep records of when you reported it.

Of course the simplest thing TC-wise is to earn enough to put you onto the family element only. That way you can't be overpaid unless you hit £50K

Just remember your error was actually a very simple one borne out of not ready the paperwork properly. You can easily avoid making the same mistake next time. Take the money.....you are entitled to it!

irs

sunflower_2

thanks irs

i didnt realise they were done together - i thought i could just apply for the CTC and not the WTC

the "entitledto" website states i wont be entitled to any WTC once i increase my hours and earn more - but i will still apply for it and just tell them what i will be earning etc

money and me just dont mix ;o)

lets hope this year gets better, it cant be any worse than 2004