Overpayment of WFTC by £2880 (2003-04)

RRS

Just received a letter from HMR&C that the above payment is overdue. Over the years we received Working Family Tax Credits saying that there was an overpayment in the past which affected the payment as they were taking money out of our tax credits. All of a sudden recieve this letters today asking for a repayment of not only £2880 for 2003-04 but also £267.49 for 2008-09, and £95 for 2006-07. I know there were errors but they kept on telling us that they were adjusting things out of our etitlement and slowly the entitlement dwindled and finally two years ago completely disappeared (I've been working Saturdays overtime and my income is gone up by 5-7k per annum as well).

What should I do? I have trawled through the sticky and other threads but our case seems different because our statements showed adjustment of payment due to previous overpayments. Where do I go from here? As kids are growing up, there is absolutely no savings or extra money (just credit card bills and bank charge notices:o). My finances are already shattered. Please help.

Frances_p

Hi,i have recieved a similar letter well 4 infact 2 to my husband ,2 to me the total they say we owe is £3,000.They stopped our payments 7 years ago to recoup the money and thought that was it,i was shocked when it arrived.
I have contacted watchdog,local MP cant get through to HMRC expect thousands are,it was there software error in 2004 now they just expect us to pay and we cant.
I sympathize i too need help with this,so if anyone can help us all that would be great

davvy

Today, I've also received Notices to Pay......I haven't been receiving Tax Credits for a few years as they were collecting overpayments from me. I had disputed these before as I had always notified Tax Credits of changes and even visited the tax office (where they gave me the wrong advice). Tax Credits won't take any responsibility for their errors - in fact they have admitted mistakes but said that I shouldn't have reasonably thought the payments were correct.....I just wish I'd never applied for them in the first place as it's really stressful trying to sort out THEIR mess.

pink76am

I have had the same thing happen today...could they seriously take everyone to court who won't or can't pay it??? There is no actual info on what will happen if you do not pay it? I am so confused, but have been given 30 day grace period to sort it because I have rung them

RRS

It is just innitial notice of payments. My wife phoned and they said we could pay in installments. But this is such an old thing and they kept on telling us that they were adjusting over-payments in our credit payments for years and then even stopped this payment for over a year. Haven't they had their full pound of flesh yet? I wouldn't be surprised if they tell us in 7 years time that they had already taken the money out and this payment notice was another of their software glitches, blah, blah, blah with an enclosed cheque for £3000 but by then the damage would have been done. The thing is I don't have any money to pay them upfront or even in installments.

RRS

Well, when banks can make the courts stop the repayment of O/D charges then there must be some way of stopping HMC from making us repay this money as well.

Sonofa

I've read a few of these today and I've taken some comfort from the fact that they seem to have shafted everyone together, however, people (including my own wife) seem very naive on the subject of HMRC; strike up the guitars and hold hands whilst singing 'we shall overcome' by all means.

The Taxman doesn't care and will take as many pounds of flesh as he wants to. Despite this being 'his' fault we will be made to pay.

If it makes you feel better I've been asked to pay 11k by the 10th July, so I've posted a wanted ad on freecycle for a sawn off and an old pair of tights (will collect).

bestpud

I don't know if this is right, but here goes:

For those who had large overpayments years ago and were having the money taken from a later award - have you renewed each year since?

As I understand it, they can only reclaim from future awards if you actually applied and received an award, albeit it was then taken away again...

I know someone who was caught out years ago, as they knew they had an overpayment which would take several years to pay off. Their next award was taken in full as it was only the family element anyway and they didn't bother renewing their claim the following year as they thought it would be taken automatically.

Basically they lost the money they could have claimed and also still had the overpayment two years on! :eek:

I don't know if that has happened to any of you...

RRS

There has to be some way. We did renew and they kept on decreasing the award saying they were taking out overpayment. If millions of us are affected then why can't we just get together? This seems interesting:

http://www.taxcc.org/