CTC - Reduced payments and not told why?????

mummyto3girls

I had a payment go into my account today but it was approx £50 less than what usually gets paid in. This is my pay date so I know this was my payment and no extra payment.

I telephoned the tax credit office about a week ago to ask for our figures for last year as I wanted to try and get an idea of how much we have earned this year and see if there is much of a difference between the two figures. My husband started a new job in April which may work out to be slightly more pay than before. The lady was very helpful and gave me some estimates on how our tax credits could change. Also I was told that they are currently in the dark regarding any changes to tax credits due to the emergency budget. They only knew that people's who incomes were £40000 or more would stop.

I phoned again today to find out about the change in payment and the advisor didn't seem to have any idea. He said that nothing had been changed on our file but that from now on we would be receiving the lower amount. He said this sometimes happens when we are coming up to the end of the tax year and also could be due to changes due to the emergency budget.

We do currently recieve good tax credits as our daughter recieves dla at the higher care component so £50 a month isn't going to make a huge difference in our lives. However am quite disappointed that we were not alerted to this and only found out today when the payment went into our account.

Has anything similar happened to anyone else? :mad:

Aarons_mummy

Usually the letters come after the payment I have found.

Did you receive the extra payment? There is a thread on here where people received a one off payment and the rest of the payments until April would be reduced to cover this extra, could it be this at all?

I've never had it happen to me but I still think you should have been given a decent explanation. I would give it a week and see if a letter comes through, if not get back on the phone and tell them you need a decent explanation as this is a loss in income to you and you want to know why. They should be able to give you something not just that it sometimes happens. Especially when it's £50 and not say £10.