anyone got a letter from tax credits about an extra payment

no-oneknowsme

I got this letter today as well.

Dont know what its all about , it does say on the letter that HMRC are getting ready for next year.....surely they have to get all claimants awards ready for next year so i dont understand why they would have to play around with a selected few awards now ?

weejan

funkyfreks wrote: »

I got this exact same letter this morning, because some have it and some don't, you guys that have it don't by anychance have the disability element on your awards do you? just wondered as we do and thought it may be connected with this.

I dont recieve the disability element and I recieved the same letter today.

DanE2010

whenever the system updates it throws out a one off payment - out of your yearly entitlement, so its not an extra payment, its part of your entitlement and will re profile your future payments to take into account you have had that payment.

For example you get £15 a week, then the system updates and throws out a one off payment of £12.45 plus your normal payment, the system will then recalculate your award to see how much is left to be paid to you in the tax year and divide it by how many weeks left, therefore you weekly payment of £15 will go down ever so slightly to take into account you have had that £12.45.

no-oneknowsme

DanE2010 wrote: »

whenever the system updates it throws out a one off payment - out of your yearly entitlement, so its not an extra payment, its part of your entitlement and will re profile your future payments to take into account you have had that payment.

For example you get £15 a week, then the system updates and throws out a one off payment of £12.45 plus your normal payment, the system will then recalculate your award to see how much is left to be paid to you in the tax year and divide it by how many weeks left, therefore you weekly payment of £15 will go down ever so slightly to take into account you have had that £12.45.

Hi Dan.

Thanks for that post.

I think we all realise the way in which it works means that overall we will still receive the same amounts of payments over the year.

We understand (as it clearly states in the letter received) that *if* we do receive this extra payment then our future payments will be reduced accordingly.

BUT- what we dont understand is WHY ?

Whats the point of doing it ?

Why do they need to do it ?

Is there a criteria of people selected ?

Can you shed any light on this ?

Thanks

winnie81

I had the letter and an extra payment of way over £200 and I have no real idea why they have bothered doing this rather than just re-do payments in April?

Seems yet another thing for them to mess up with

Martynflowers

My guess is they are paying a lump sum then lowering payments so in may when you renew your claim and the weekly payment stays the same most people will not realise the actuall annual money you are receiving has been reduced. Could be wrong but we will see

DanE2010

Unfortunately I cant answer the reason as to why the system does it, I know its very frustrating to those trying to budget and wanna know what their weekly payments are gonna be but apparently the way the system is designed there is no way a human can get round the system doing it so its pretty much out of the hands of the staff, which isnt alot of help when they have to try and explain it to people ringing in why there payments have gone down etc. The system automatically does it everytime the system updates - for example if you ring to change your bank account, once the sytem processes that change it will automatically throw out a 1 off payment and there is nothing anyone can do about it, the reason they dont know if you will get the payment is because they are probably updating the system to take into account the changes happening in the new tax year like the new thresholds for income etc to make sure it is calculated properly on award notices, also the deadline for confirming your actual income for 09/10 is the end of Jan so maybe that has something to do with it, maybe once that is applied it will effect some households wheras other wont be effected? I really dont know for sure, but if the system is updated then usually this is what happens.

Hope that helps abit!

no-oneknowsme

Thanks Dan.

For the poster who got an extra payment of well over £200 , surely that will work out that the rest of your payments between now and April are going to be approx £15 less than usual !!!!

Thats a lot of money to be down per week and regardless of who says to put the extra payment received away to be used a little each week.....yeah right ! lol , its xmas , how many of us realistically would receive such an amount and be able to not touch it lol.

JPS29

To those that have had the extra payment can I ask was it in the child tax element or the working tax element. Like a previous poster I get one in my account and my MRS the other in hers.

Cheers

*Jane*

I also recieved a letter. What i cannot understand they are trying to cut costs then send thousands if not millions of these letters out and we still recieve the same payment over the year so why bother more waste