tax credit letter received this morning!!

mummmy09

i received a tax credit letter this morning asking if i had a partner living with me, which i do. so i rang them right away and told them yes and that it should be on the system as i wrote a letter, and i have a copy which i sent to housing benefit too.
that was in august, so now they will have to reasess my claim as partnet not working n im working, for the past 4 minths i also received help for childcare n now they r saying im not entitle. so htat means i owe them, when my claim is looked into how will i have to pay them back. im worried i wont be able to afford it and also they r saying im only entitle to 400 a month with partner including. i wont have enough money to support all for of us.
very worried, any advice plz

Caz3121

you say you wrote them a letter - was this to close your single claim and did you receive a new claim pack for the joint claim?

They are correct re the childcare - both parties need to be working to be entitled to the childcare element, is there a reason your partner cannot look after the child(ren) whilst he is not working to save childcare costs?

mummmy09

Caz3121 wrote: »

you say you wrote them a letter - was this to close your single claim and did you receive a new claim pack for the joint claim?

They are correct re the childcare - both parties need to be working to be entitled to the childcare element, is there a reason your partner cannot look after the child(ren) whilst he is not working to save childcare costs?

hi there,
yes i know im not entitled now but didnt know that in august, n no i never received a pack to fill in. and also if i knew im not entitled i wouldnt have sent her to nursery as she is only 2. it wasnt a much as i work part time and partner still looking for a job.
what i want to know is how will i have to repay them and any idea how much im entitled . this is very worrying

no-oneknowsme

mummmy09 wrote: »

hi there,
yes i know im not entitled now but didnt know that in august, n no i never received a pack to fill in. and also if i knew im not entitled i wouldnt have sent her to nursery as she is only 2. it wasnt a much as i work part time and partner still looking for a job.
what i want to know is how will i have to repay them and any idea how much im entitled . this is very worrying

Your single claim will now end and you will be reassessed for a joint claim along with your partner.

Any over payment that you have received since August will have to be paid back as you already know.

If you are entitled to receive anything in the joint claim then the amount that you are awarded will be reduced weekly to pay back the over payment.

If however you find that you can not manage to live on the new award because repaying the over payment is causing hardship then you can ask to have it looked at again and they may be able to adjust it to reduce how much you pay back per week however it will then take you longer to clear the over payment.

You may find that you would have been entitled to a joint award from August when your single claim should have ended. When you speak to HMRC ensure that you tell them that you want your joint claim to be started on the very day that you should have ended your single claim . You may find that this will see you end up with a smaller amount to pay back than you are thinking.

For example : Your single award per week was £100
: Your joint award per week would have been £60 per week

Which means your over payment per week was only £40 , not the whole amount of your single weekly payment

Does that make sense ?

DanE2010

Sorry no-oneknowsme thats actually incorrect for her circumstances, If you have an overpayment for a single claim they cannot take it off your new joint claim, what they will do as it was over 3 months ago that your partner moved in is take into account the overlap between what they owe you in a joint claim (as they can backdate this 3 months) and what you have been overpaid in the single claim they will then offset they two to reduce the amount of the overpayment. So any overpayment that is left you will have to arrange to pay back direct (you can set up a direct debit to pay it back via instalments) but it cannot be taken off your weekly payments for your new joint claim.

Have you now spoken to the helpline? They will explain all this to you and you will need to ring them to get the application form anyways, they can also give you an estimate over the phone as to what your likely to be entitled to, you can also do a calculation yourself on the HMRC website.

System

no-oneknowsme wrote: »

Your single claim will now end and you will be reassessed for a joint claim along with your partner.

Any over payment that you have received since August will have to be paid back as you already know.

If you are entitled to receive anything in the joint claim then the amount that you are awarded will be reduced weekly to pay back the over payment.

If however you find that you can not manage to live on the new award because repaying the over payment is causing hardship then you can ask to have it looked at again and they may be able to adjust it to reduce how much you pay back per week however it will then take you longer to clear the over payment.

You may find that you would have been entitled to a joint award from August when your single claim should have ended. When you speak to HMRC ensure that you tell them that you want your joint claim to be started on the very day that you should have ended your single claim . You may find that this will see you end up with a smaller amount to pay back than you are thinking.

For example : Your single award per week was £100
: Your joint award per week would have been £60 per week

Which means your over payment per week was only £40 , not the whole amount of your single weekly payment

Does that make sense ?

I'm sorry but that is wrong. TCO cannot reduce the payments on a brand new claim to pay back an overpayment on a previous claim.

If your old single claim is stopped as of August then there will be an overpayment for the period from then until now. However similarly there will be entitlement back 93 days on your new joint claim and what TCO have been doing is saying we will not pay you the money we owe you for backdating your joint claim 93 days instead we will withhold that lump sum and set it against the overpayment on the old single claim.

However if that is not enough to cover the whole of the overpayment you will have to come to an arrangement with TCO to pay that back yourself.

wal1

the amount the extra payment is for isnt life changing its only a few pounds and its due to a slight change to the way your rewards are being prosesed in the new systerm £11.38 for most people.and it means that your payment there after will be slighty lower

DX2

wal1 wrote: »

the amount the extra payment is for isnt life changing its only a few pounds and its due to a slight change to the way your rewards are being prosesed in the new systerm £11.38 for most people.and it means that your payment there after will be slighty lower

Behave yourself it's more than a few quid! Add up all childcare payments since August.