Overpaid Tax Credit Award

System

jo2512 wrote: »

I appealed the IR decision to reclaim the money and lost,even though one of their advisers had told me not to bother with the Renewal Form and just fill in the new claim. I was threatened with legal action on 20.12.07 (nice crimbo pressie!!), if I didn't repay the money immediately.

If you were told over the phone not to complete the Renewal form then you should immediately ask for a Subject Access Request. You should ask in particular for a copy of all calls made to TCO. They will be sent out to you on a CD. Once you have that you can then prove misadvice and ask for the overpayment to be remitted.

jo2512

Thanks Pam. I've already done that, but I'm not holding out much hope of finding anything in recorded telephone calls as not all of them are actually recorded and IR are very good at not being able to find this type of information! Fingers crossed!

jo2512

:T Hi All, Just thought I'd share my happy ending and perhaps give hope to all of you other unfortunate souls doing battle with IR over Tax Credit Awards.
I just heard this morning via my MP that I've won my case and don't have to repay the £1861.15 they alleged I owed them. They've admitted they wrongly recorded my information and I'm getting a letter of apology!!

So the moral of my story is DON'T LET THEM AWAY WITH IT!!!! No matter how much hassle it may be to write, phone or even involve your MP. It's definitely been worth it. Good luck to you all!!!

pauldr

When this benefit was in it's infancy an interim payment was made to all claimants. In the time between my initial claim and the interim paymrnt of iver £1000 being made I was promoted and doubled my take-home pay. Child Tax Credits were called and informed of my new pay...they apparently ignored this and paid out on the info on the form.

When the money went into my bank I immediately went to my local Tax Office to arrange to pay it back...the gentleman at the Tax Office spoke to Tax Credits and was told I could not pay it back as it would cause financial hardship(I have a recording of this phone call and Tax Credits acknowledged this in their las letter to my MP who is unable to help me further!).

The Tax Credits people state that as I tried to pay it back I knew I was not entitled to it!

I have asked if the overpayment could be recovered by stopping payments of £10 per week(my full entitlement) - they cannot do this as it is a new claim. The new claim came about as on 3 occasions our record was incorrectly updated to show a family breakdown! I did raise a question regarding Data Protection comliance and got nowhere.

When I called in December to offer payment terms they insisted that I pay £100 per month minimum...£60 down and hence £100 below the income level prescribed by the Government...this will cause financial hardship! I contacted my MP regarding their demands and he got nowhere so I wrote to the Adjudicators in January...with everything else going on it didn't even cross my mind that we had not had a reply, then on Saturday a "Notice Warning of Legal Proceedings" drops through my door...nice!

I have rewritten my letter to the adjudicators and now emailed the office of the Prime Minister...

I find it astounding that the department cannot reduce payments on request to offset against the conceived debt whilst it is being investigated/dealt with. I also find it astounding that 2 years ago I received a giro for £125 in respect of an underpayment in the previous tax year when I was showing as a net overpayment!

Any advice on where I can go next would be very welcome as I do not have £1800 sitting around!

Cheers
Paul