Overpaid Tax Credit Award

FieryBlondeScot

on the upside thanks to mr lewis and the money savin crew on here, my 3and a half grand overpayment to WFTC****heads :-X is balanced somewhat by the fact that i have saved £2500 on my bills per yr jus by makin a few eeny weeny changes to my loans credit cards ellecy and home and mobile phone providers, this goes some way to compensating the fact that cos of the WFTC****heads i am about 200quid a month worse off
still raging mad with WFTC though ;D

but giant thanx to you guys xxxxxxxxxxxx

amber1818

Firefly, keep onto ur MP. You posted reply to my prob few days ago about overpayments. Dont know if I've just been lucky but my MP acted really quick (in 2 days) WTC overpayment will still take a few weeks to sort but wheels are in motion and MP got my housing benefit re-instated. Darnt say too much in case sumthing else goes wrong..but I've got an 18 year old son too, still at college so bet I get probs when he leaves this year too, been told so many different things by IR about when CTC ends for him..like his actual last day at college, then up till child benefit ends in Sept, then up till his 19th birthday in Dec...aggggggggghhhh. How we spose to understand it when they cant get it right or know wot they're talking about..hope u get it sorted ok..

System

I have had the same sort of problem. notified them in June that I was no longer claiming child minder fees as I was no longer paying them, only to find that when I received my new claim forms last week that according to their files they are still paying them. The mind boggles. ???

This seems to be happening a lot- my friend claims Disabled Tax Credits. She stopped working on 12th Dec last year and informed them. They sent a letter out confirming they had cancelled the award and paid her the £80 that was left owing to her.

On Friday she received her renewal forms (which she hadn't been expecting!) informing her that as of the 12th Dec she was working 20hrs a week... mad.

Did you report your change in circumstances using the online system? I am suspicious it may be due to this in my friend's case. She is just going to send back the blank form and a photocopy of the letter they sent her in Dec confirming they knew she was no longer working/claiming. Will let you know what happens!

Ted_Hutchinson

Tax Credit Online Registration

If you/your friend use the above link to register for online access to your tax credit account you will be able to see when/if the IR fail to respond to your notifying them of a change of circumstance.

I appreciate you shouldn't have to double check that the Inland Revenue have actually done what they said they would do, or indeed check that they have done what they claim they have aready done, but because of the huge number of claims they are dealing with, this is becoming a significant problem and it is better to sort things out as soon as possible rather than be faced with a major arguement with them or a massive overpayment to repay.

System

Just want to add mine to the tales of woe!

Our circumstances kept slightly changing (by at least £10/week) all last year. We phoned up every time to keep IR up to date, and got hordes of revised notices.

In February this year we ceased qualifying childcare, and DH started a new job earning a lot more money. So I'm sure we owe them 'something' since the annual award was worked out on a lower income... but their computers completely obliterated all qualifying childcare over the previous tax year! The conclusion is that we owe them £2000 from last year, which has been deducted from this and next year's awards... but compared to some of the stories in this forum, I'm not feeling too bad. Just don't know if I have the energy to try to chase it thru CAB, whatever.

janiewai

My award came through with an overpayment of over 3K due to a computer error which in effect was a human into computer error as they had down my hubby worked and where but no income for him just me.

I contacted my local MP Friday and today she has phoned me for my NI Number etc and is on the case.

Lets see what happens

Ted_Hutchinson

As more claimants are moved from Income Support onto Tax Credits this problem will get worse and worse.

As least you will have an increased income from which to repay the overpayment but for others, they will be repaying it from the money the law says they need to live on which will mean, through no fault of their own, they will have less than the law says they need to live on.

There should be a way of drawing a line at a change of circumstance, properly notified, which means that everything before that date was sorted and the changes in income and credit following that were promptly adjusted so the recipient knew exactly what the income and liabilities were.

What you are saying makes perfect sense and the Inland Revenue should be able to modify procedures to take account of the cash flow problems of those without any capital or savings. If you are already spending or committed to spending every penny you earn knowing you are going to have to repay money you have already spent isn't very easy to do.

The only thing I can suggest is for you to ensure your MP is aware of the problems FaxyourMP

ladydriva

im a single parent student nurse who does 38 hours on placement or college, i got a job for 16 weeks to claim wtc.took them 8 weeks to sort out my wtc and after lots of fone calls from me last week finally got it sorted, i new what my weekly wtc was gunna be, they paid me thr 8 weeks back pay,, then i had over 2 grand put in my account!!!!!! rang em they said it was fine they owed it me
kept thinkin this aint right, finally got through to sum1 who new waht they were talkin about and it seems they got me down workin 40 hrs a week last year,,i only started claimin 8 weeks ago!
situation at mo is if i send em a cheque for the overpayment my award will be stopped until they sort it out,, prob at least another 8 weeks of hel off them or i keep the cash and they told me they will take it back at not more than 25 % of my weekly award
imworried if i do this there gunna come 1 day and say they want it all back in 1 lump sum, on the other hand im worried but givin it back and waitin another 8 weeks and lots of hassle to get it sorted
all this makes me think is it really worthwhile?
im jsut apoor student tryin to pay mortgage etc, working me !!!!!! off yet the stress of all this is doin me head in big time

Fran

ladydriva -

The first thing to do is to find out the correct payment that you should have had. If you call into your local Citizens Advice Bureau with all your income and expenditure details they will be able to tell you this. Then, if it was me, I'd hang onto the money (so the interest is in your account) and pay them back when they have finally made their calculation. You say you knew what the correct amount was going to be - it's still worth checking this with CAB so you know where you stand. Why not fax/see/email/write to your MP as well as suggested by Ted above. Good luck, this is happening to a lot of people ( )

princess

when our circumstances changed for the worse last year we were sent out of the blue £3000 tax credits - which was clearly way too much.
We phoned of course and they said there was no facility to take it back at that time and we should hang onto it.....they would take it back eventually.....So we have had to hang onto it. every penny.
can you imagine giving people who could really do with the money £3000 then telling them not to spend it? i feel certain loads of people would have spent it and would now be facing real debt.
even now 6 months on they still can give us no idea of how much, if any of it we can keep. this is incredibly frustrating as we really do need to start spending it if any of it is going to be ours.
nice to hear about getting the MP involved, i hadnt thought of that. a nice straight forward task for sir teddy taylor to take on before he retires :-/