tax credit overpayment PLEASE HELP

zzxxcc1122

i receieved a letter from hm customs saying that i have been over payed my tax credit award from 2009/10

my income was £12300

my partners income was £2000

but she recieved incapacity benefit which she was told by her jobcentre advisor wouldnt affect any other benefits so i never put it on the form.
she recieved £4900 for the tax year.

i never new that incapacity was taxable but i now realise that it is and we acted on advice from a proffesional jobcentre advisor.

so i am now worried sick of what happens next i have congtated tax credits and they asked a few questions and they said ill hear from them via post.

in short i claimed tax credits for 2 adults and 1 child

and i put my income as £14300

when it should have been £19300

can anyonbe help me with this . what will they do. will this effect my benefits in future.

i now have 2 children one aged 3 and one 5 months and currently recieve £520 in wtc and child tax credits.

PLEASE HELP IM WORRIED SICK

Aarons_mummy

They will send you out an award notice with all your info and ho much has been overpaid. Check through it to see that all information is correct, ask them to set up a repayment plan and they will take an agreed amount from your TC every week/month depending how it's paid to you.

Don't worry if you comply there won't be any problems and no it shouldn't affect your entitlement to benefits at any point.

ce1

I recently had an overpayment of just over £500 due to estimated income and they would not take it off of our payments, we have to pay it back directly, so they havent adjusted our tax credits they give us the same amount and we pay £11 per week back. I did ask them to just adjust it but they said they dont do that anymore? Strange!

Anyway, you can check the turn to us website to see what you should have been getting and that will give you an idea of what the overpayment may be.

lorelai34

Ce1 - tax credits do still recover overpayment from current claims, the only time they cannot do it is if it is from a previous claim.

So op if your overpayment is from this your current claim they will use cross year recovery but if it is from a separate claim they would ask for it to be paid back directly.

Icequeen99

If the advice was given by Jobcentre plus staff then you can dispute. once the overpayment is showing on your award notice, ring HMRC and ask for a COP 26 leaflet and a TC846 dispute form.

Send the form and tell them that you think the overpayment should be written off because you relied on advice by Jobcentre Plus.

IQ

lorelai34

Don't think a dispute would be successful. Disputes only tend to be successful if hmrc provided incorrect advice or failed to meet their responsibilities. Their argument will be that they did not tell him that incapacity benefit wasn't classed as income it was the DWP. For example if someone asks a tax credit advisor if housing benefit take into account tax credits the answer would always be sorry I can only answer tax credit queries you will need to contact the relevant dept. The JCP aren't blameless but it isn't hmrc fault he was given the wrong advice.