CTC Overpayment

halibut2209

I'll try and be as concise as possible

On 24th June last year, my wife and I reconciled (yay!)

We told the tax credit people and they said we had to make a new claim. It took them several months to send out the form to us (after claiming they'd already sent us one which we didn't receive)

We filled it in and sent it back

On the 10th of August they stopped all payments. From 24th June to 10th August, we received £257 a week

We received no more money until 28th September. This is where it gets a bit complex!

We received an award letter on the 24th September for 26/8/10 - 05/04/11. It said we would get £8291 for that time period and they paid a lump sum of £1300, then £261 a week

We then received ANOTHER award letter on the 27th for 24/06/10 - 05/04/11.

This said we were entitled to £9975 and that we had already received £1300. So they would pay a lump sum of £1040 and then £259 a week.

We were a bit concerned that we had received 2 lump sums, but they had acknowledged both of them in the 2nd award letter so all was good. And the numbers seemed to add up. £1040 and £1300 and £259 a week til the end of March adds up to the £9975

So all was good

We then received an amended award letter at the end of December saying that the award amount was the same but we'd only be getting £238 a week. We believe this is due to an extra payment made at christmas (2 payments in 2 days). Again the maths work.

BUT

We got a letter saying we had an overpayment of £350 which needed to be paid back. Going back through the accounts, this was made late 2009 when my wife and I separated. She received that extra payment. So we rang them up to arrange a reypament, and they then told us that we had another overpayment of £1800! Again, they claimed to have told us, but we have received no letters from them at all. All we've had is 3 award letters which tally with each other.

Now, I've spent many hours going through all our payments and I have finally worked out where this overpayment was. It was the £257 a week we received between June and August.

Does this have to be repaid? We did everything we were supposed to do. Informed them of changes of circumstances. Their (many) letters tally with each other. We simply cannot afford a 10% reduction in CTC. There are some older threads, and a BBC article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4119028.stm

I quote from there

"
An overpayment should not have to be paid back if it was the result of the HMRC's mistake and the individual could reasonably have believed that the tax credits payments were correct.
This position is outlined in the HMRC's Code of Practice COP26 "What happens if we have paid you too much tax credit?".
For example, if you told HMRC that your daughter had left school and was now at work, and it didn't process this information to change your award, you should explain to HMRC that the overpayment was as a result of its error."


As I see it, we did tell them about the change, and they didn't process it correctly. Do I have a case?

LesleyG1984

Although you notified them of the changes were these reported immediately or at least within one month of the change? If this is not the case then this will be the reason for the overpayment. If for example when you split up TC's were not notified either by yourself or your partner for a few months then during this period while payments were being made, neither party had entitlement to this money are you were not together and it was a joint claim.

halibut2209

We notified them about 2 weeks after I moved back in. The money was paid in until they eventually sent us a new form. That was the reason for the delay, not that we didn't tell them. As soon as they received that back, they stopped payments and we were without any payments for 7 weeks (another story!)

LesleyG1984

That is where you issue lies then, they should have been notified that you had split up and then when you go back together.....EVERY change needs to be reported, its the only way to keep yourself right.

halibut2209

We did tell them when we split up. That's when my wife got the £350 overpayment.

We did tell them when we got back together

LesleyG1984

The only other way this could have happened is that at the start of each tax year the award is based on that it is going to run for the full 12 months of the tax year. As there is no way of knowing in advance that you's would split up that is all it can be based on, if you could predict this (but impossible) then when the claim is started at the start of each year it would be calculated for the period you are still together.

What I mean is on the original claim you would have rec'd £350 more than you were entitled to if its possible to predict this sort of change in advance. You can certainly call up and ask for a dispute form however this may not go the way that you would like.