Paying back Child Tax Credit overpayments

starlight5

although i'm going to appeal to the hilt about my overpayment situation I am still wondering, if all else fails, how easy it is to agree on a monthly overpayment amount. I was so shocked at receiving the payment notices that I ended up on the phone within minutes and them going through all my income & expenditure (well all that I could think of off the top of my head due to the shock of it all) & them saying I could afford it ok! I sooo begrudge it due to the circumstances and wonder if there is a minimum monthly amount I can payback or if they set the amount.
can anyone help please??

Icequeen99

starlight5 wrote: »

although i'm going to appeal to the hilt about my overpayment situation I am still wondering, if all else fails, how easy it is to agree on a monthly overpayment amount. I was so shocked at receiving the payment notices that I ended up on the phone within minutes and them going through all my income & expenditure (well all that I could think of off the top of my head due to the shock of it all) & them saying I could afford it ok! I sooo begrudge it due to the circumstances and wonder if there is a minimum monthly amount I can payback or if they set the amount.
can anyone help please??

First of all you need to look into whether you need to appeal or dispute your overpayment. They are two different processes. Most people end up on the dispute route.

You can agree a monthly repayment, but it has to be reasonable based on your income and expenditure. The minimum for direct debit is £10 per month. So if your income and expenditure mean you only have a small amount of disposable income then you can only repay £10 per month. If you have no disposable income, then you can ask them to suspend recovery, or in serious cases ask for a write off on hardship grounds.

IQ

starlight5

thanks, have disputed this once and reduced it by £300 then the next day issued a further notice of £555. Looks like the overpayment is now almost £3k with majority going back to 2009 as per my post earlier today when I had a dreadful year with redundancy, no childcare support for my son with aspergers, retraining and taking part time job with additional overtime whenever offered so although I estimated £5k income it was nearer £10k.
Can I dispute it again as I still can't fathom why they continued to pay me hence escalating the debt. I do have a disposable income but sooo begrudge paying them large amounts when I feel that I have met my responsibilities.
Any thoughts??

Icequeen99

starlight5 wrote: »

thanks, have disputed this once and reduced it by £300 then the next day issued a further notice of £555. Looks like the overpayment is now almost £3k with majority going back to 2009 as per my post earlier today when I had a dreadful year with redundancy, no childcare support for my son with aspergers, retraining and taking part time job with additional overtime whenever offered so although I estimated £5k income it was nearer £10k.
Can I dispute it again as I still can't fathom why they continued to pay me hence escalating the debt. I do have a disposable income but sooo begrudge paying them large amounts when I feel that I have met my responsibilities.
Any thoughts??

If you estimated income of 5k and it turned out to be 10k, then that isn't HMRC's fault either, so however much that contributed to the overpayment won't be written off. Is that the only cause?

If you have the disposable income then they will expect you to pay, there isn't much you can do except make a reasonable offer.

IQ