Tax credits - Notice to Pay - urgent advice needed please

zagfles

BD3 wrote: »

Sorry for the late update.

I spoke to TC team recently and the advisor was polite enough to go through the figures with me but unfortunately he only confirmed the overpayment details of one year (2004).

I called back the following day and spoke to another TC advisor, who provided me with the complete details which I wanted. He apologised for the incomplete information provided by the advisor the day before.

This was the outcome of our phone conversation, in summary:

2003/4 £5,904 overpayment. After recovering monies, I still have an overpayment of £1,520

2004/5 £4,678 overpayment. After recovering monies, I still have an overpayment of £3,763

2005/6 £1,051 overpayment. After recovering monies, I still have an overpayment of £618

Therefore, total overpayments ~£5,900

# There are no outstanding overpayments between 2006-2012

# I was given the date and amount of the overpayments and I checked with my accounts and they match.

# The overpayment will not affect my credit rating because it’s a “public” payment unless I refuse to start paying back the overpayment when its due (02Jun12)

# We are no longer eligible for WTC or CTC, based on my earnings (since it’s above the threshold). I think it’s £32,000.

# I have received the T607 letter confirming that we have been withdrawn from TC and the awards has stopped.

# As I’m not entitled to CTC, they are effectively closing my account with tem and that’s why they want to close my file with them and hence the demand for all the overpayments to be paid asap.

# Regarding repayments, they understood that paying over £5,900 over 12 mths was going to be difficult. They said that payments could be extended to 36mths without question. However, if I wanted to extend that to more than 3 yrs then they would take a detailed look at my income, outgoings, savings, etc.

My immediate feeling at the moment is that HMRC did overpay me in error and I ought to pay it back over 3yrs even thought my finances will be a bit tight, I could do it.

Did you have increases in income in those tax years? There was only a £2500 disregard at the time so increases could easily have resulted in overpayments. Did you tell them straight away about any increases?

Icequeen99

Their policy used to be 3 years without question, but in 2010 they published an updated policy extending it to 10 years before requiring full income and expenditure information.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/leaflets/how-hmrc-handle-txcr-opay.pdf

IQ

donny_osmonds_mad_fan

just wondering why the TC's have only realised this now? as someone said and what has always happened to me is that if we have under estimated our income they have adjusted the money till it is paid back the following year....so why didnt they do that back in 2003 or so?

Icequeen99

donny_osmonds_mad_fan wrote: »

just wondering why the TC's have only realised this now? as someone said and what has always happened to me is that if we have under estimated our income they have adjusted the money till it is paid back the following year....so why didnt they do that back in 2003 or so?

They have always done that. But if you owe a lot of money, they can't recover it back in only one year and then when your claim ends, like the OP, you have an amount that you still owe.

IQ

BD3

Did you have increases in income in those tax years? There was only a £2500 disregard at the time so increases could easily have resulted in overpayments. Did you tell them straight away about any increases?

I haven't checked any figures, but my salary has risen annually. It's possible that I may have missed updating HMRC (eg. when my partner was ill).

BD3

As suggested in an earlier post, I visited CAB.

The CAB Advisor asked me to check what I was entitled to between 2003-2005 and also to present. This may affect what I may have been due and what they are expecting me to pay back. He also suggested that I use the CTC Calculator to give an idea what I would have been entitled to over the years depending on my income over those years. The calculator is located at the directdotgovdotuk website.

I've have used the calculator and looked through my previous years CTC statements and I can see that HMRC were trying to recover the payments. The letter was apologetic and at that time mentioned that the overpayments would have to be paid back.

So, what do I think? well, I can't see any chances of me being successful if I dispute with HMRC about the figures. They have a stronger case, I think. Perhaps at this stage I'll have to pay back the overpayments......might have to sleep on it tho'.

Any other thoughts?

BD3

....Bump....

aus2610

Hi All,

I hate the tragic stories here. I really feel for those with big debts over their heads.

it makes people sound like scroungers who had a great time on the money they were overpaid.

I have a demand for around £2400 over 2 years.
I didnt live it up, I was made redundant twice in 2 years so for a short period we had no income. This triggered a huge payment which tided us over each time, and then just as we got on our feet the demands come in.

My real concern is that we were overpaid in 2010/2011 - we owed £1100. so why did they then trigger a payment of £1300 in 2011/2012 - surely as we owed them money they should have taken that into account.

So my dispute is that they put us into the hardship by not checking our situation when starting the claim for 2011/12

Also however many times we give them actual documents, wage slips, P45s and P60s they just ignore them. they refuse to look at previous years and recalculate.

They are a law to themselves.

Sorry to rant. I am a fellow traveller on this road.