Tax Credit Overpayments Help & Discuss

Marigold123

irs101 wrote:

I think you're a bit over-cynical. I'm not a big supporter of this Govt overall, but I think their intentions in this area were honourable. Of course the Govt. will benefit in the long run, but if they get it right, why shouldn't they? I would vote for any party who takes millions of children out of poverty, wouldn't you? But it's a big if....

As you say, it's a big if.

And as for being over-cynical, it will be interesting to see how it all turns out and see what we all think when we look back from 5 or 10 years hence.

mrs_toast_2

I'm quite relieved to see that I'm not the only one to suffer at the hands of the IR. I have filled out all the forms correctly and thought everything was fine until I went back to work part time after maternity leave and everything went pear shaped. Even more so when I had my second child. Thought it was settled and then - great - I now get money from the govt towards the eldests creche fees and when I tried to explain the varying amounts I receive to the very nice man on the phone so that he could adjust my Tax Credits accordingly, I was more confused than ever. and now I owe them loads. I feel like telling them to stuff it as the money received is not worth the hassle to claim it but I guess once big brother has a grip on you finances, he is not going to let go easily.

verysagey

We were overpaid - tax credits - our fault - and we held our hands up - we just didnt realise that my husband had earnt that much more - by the time they had worked it out - we had been paying too much for nearly a year. We were told that our payments would be going from approx £400 a month to £50 a month to pay the overpayment back - this would be for about 8 months and then in April they would rise to the amount we should be getting.

I rang immediately to see if they could extend the amount of time to pay back thus increasing our monthly payments and not subjecting us to such a large decrease per month. They told me they couldnt do it there, they would have to send the request to someone else. a couple of weeks later I had heard nothing, so I rang again - I was told (quite patronisingly) that the request had been passed on and that I may have to wait several weeks.

We are still waiting and in debt because of the accumulation of lack of money each month. I have had nothing but trouble since tax credits started. When I gave up my job after having my last child, they had got my details down as not working but earning 12,000!!! It took them 4 months and 5 interim payments from the local tax office (whom were absolutley brilliant!!) before they finally sorted out, we once had a letter saying that they couldnt pay us any money because they hadnt got my husbands pay reference - I tried to explain that they must have to have been paying us previously and was told that my 'husband must have changed jobs!' He had and still is in that job and has been for nearly 10 years. But no they were insistant and I had to ring his work get the reference and ring them back - another month without any money. They seem to make a complete and utter mess up of everything they touch - and the amount of people you speak to that think they are being paid to much and have even queried it but tax credit dept dont want to know!!

Homework

May be of help here.

During 2003-2004 tax year we had no changes of circumstances but they sent us 40 notifications in 33 weeks changing our circumstances 12 times and reduced our payments every time they sent a notification. We phoned every time a payment altered or we received more than 1 giro (even though we requested bank payments and had to do a 10 mile round trip to bank the money) and at one point told a £300 giro was being issued to 'catch up' as we had been underpaid and then we were told our payments were right. They then input someone else's wages on our account and stopped the award and told us we were getting no more. It took 3 phone calls to find out why it had been stopped and then we got it corrected.

So..... 31 July 2004 they sent us a letter to say we had been overpaid nearly £500 and they took it off this years WTC/CTC. We appealed in August and in September were told we could not appeal and had to complete a TC846 form which we did and sent off in September. We then got another TC846 in October and phoned again and was told to fill it in too just in case with a letter asking why, which we did. Early November we got a letter acknowledging receipt of our correspondence not saying what they have received and after a further letter and millions of calls we eventually wrote to the Inland Revenue Directors in December. In January 2005 after getting no response from the directors I read booklet COP1 which gave me an email address for the Inland Revenue if you were unhappy with the Directors response (which I was because they hadn't responded at all and I couldn't get through by phone to them) and emailed them my problem. I was able to speak to them and they advised me they could not intervene until the directors answered and that could take 3-4 months.

BUT they passed on all my comments to the Directors and I then got through to the Directors by phone and within 2 weeks or so I had 2 giro cheques totalling nearly £500 (which has been getting deducted every week since July 2004) and surprisingly another letter a week later apologising profusely for the 'poor service' I received and compensating me £40 acknowledge my upset and cover postage and telephone calls.

NEVER GIVE UP, be persistent, keep going if you know you are right. This has been a nightmare to deal with since April 2003 until now when it has finally finished. Don't let them spoil your life and we are determined to work as hard as we can to get away from this system of benefits which has had us on the phone for almost 2 years.

DorsetDave2

Martin has opened up a deluge response here I feel. I just hope Gordon Brown will listen.

Previously we all had an allowance through our tax code and that worked perfectly.They must have changed it for Political reasons (they tried to tell us it was so that women could claim it but I cant understand that one because even if you had a partner or were a lone parent it still came back to the family unit in the end.) I think it was because they felt an allowance through a tax code wasnt so appealing to the voters as giving it to us separately. But they've scored an almighty own goal here.

I have been overpaid despite thinking I had given them all my correct details.
They just stopped my payments without telling me. I have written to them twice (recorded delivery) but I just get a standard reply to say they have had so many enquiries it will be some time before they can deal with my case.

The whole tax credit scheme is a total shambles. Surely they have a duty of care to sort out peoples problems promptly and not just ignore us. The government has to admit it has got itself in a mess with this one.

If you are on a low income especially how can you possibly try and plan your finances responsibly when the inland revenue are being so irresponsible and uncaring.

mozza_2

Hi,
I have also received an overpayment, so far they haven't asked for it back but it will only be a matter of time. After claiming tax credits in May 2003 I waited 5 months before the award came through when it did they had completely missed my husbands earnings off the form and paid direct into our bank account £1,700! I phoned them up immediately and got the details changed when they calculated that we were only due £900 that year, they said they would collect it by not paying us any tax credit until it is all paid back but since then our business has been more successful and I think they will be shortly be asking for the rest of the money back. As we are both self employed the award is calculated on the profit made by the business each year - if only we actually kept all that money for ourselves, in order to expand the business we have to keep money back it does make you wonder whether it is worth being honest. All of the stress of being accidentally overpaid would have been avoided if they had simply sent us an award letter before putting the money into our account.

Lozz

During 2003/2004 I was in the same boat as most people posting on this thread, I received 7 different award notices all with different amounts, each time being told on the phone the changes I was reporting wouldn't affect my CTC, and each and every time receiving a new award notice informing me of an overpayment, finally culminating in my receiving no tax credit at all for the last 4 months of the tax year.

I was fed up with it all and couldn't find anything for months on the web as to how they work out the figures. Eventually I came across this site:-

http://www.lawcentreni.org/Publications/Tax%20credit%20briefings%202004/tax_credit_briefing_4.htm

Luckily they used to have an example on there which mirrored my family circumstances so I found it fairly easy to check my award, it is a big long winded but I hope it helps somebody.

Lozz

loobyloo1980

I too am having trouble understanding my mountain of award notices. I have a pile of them. IN the last tax year, we used to recieve 4 at a time, as it was a joint claim, but with 2 different income levels on. At the end of 2003/2004 we were told we were underpaid £480 and got a giro. 2 weeks later we got a letter saying we were overpaid £1200!!! I phoned up and the woman at IR said she had no idea where the under/over payments were from as there was nothing showing up on our case to explain it.

Since then we have been paying back the award at a few £ a week off the current award. But I am expecting the proverbial to hit the fan in April, as my partners income has jumped by £8000 on last year. Have let them know the change in income as an estimate so they can do something about it now, but obvioulsy won't know the final figures til end March. I have a feeling this will cause massive probs for overpayments and can feel a struggle on our hands to stop them taking it all off out of my CTC payments. I think I will appeal it though as it would be a major financial blow to lose that much per week, given that partners income is partly made up of unguaranteed overtime and on basic weeks we will struggle with the decrease.

Does anyone know what I should do regarding overtime? Do you just give an estimate of your income for coming tax year and then adjust it when you know what your income is likely to be? He will have earned about £18k this year, but probably £4k of that is overtime which he may not get this coming year.

bambam_2

Our wages went over the threshold and we were overpaid by about £350 so I phoned to arrange to repay by direct debit. The guy on the helpline advised me to get it checked out because (in his words) "They are making a lot of mistakes and there are probably more incorrect assesments than correct ones" He also said that they are in such a muddle that he was one of many drafted in to help out.

dag_2

lots of people all in similar circumstances ... I've had a mountain of award notices too.

I requested that they send out duplicates of absolutely all the award notices they've ever sent me. I then took them to a citizens advice bureau.

They told me I need to ask for a TC647 form, which will explain why the TCO thinks they've overpaid me.

I'm still hoping that the whole thing will be done and dusted in a few months, but there will probably be a struggle.

I have always refused to pay bills that I don't completely understand. When I've challenged these bills, they usually turn out to be mistaken, or fraudulent. So I don't make any exceptions for the Inland Revenue. Especially seeing as I've lost out on housing benefit to get the allegedly overpaid tax credit in the first place.

I've yet to hear of a single tax credit overpayment being successfully enforced against anyone in a court of law.

Despite the fact that I doubt the overpayment's legal enforceability, it still bothers me. I would like to organise people into street protests. They managed to turn over the Poll Tax in 1990 - so why can't we do the same with tax credit overpayments?