overpayment-inland rev want my blood

mummyyummy_2

at least it feels like it...they say we owe £1045 in overpayment from 03 back to them but we dont...i appealed ages ago and they still say i still owe them it. Got a letter, then a phone call cpl days ago from inland revenue debt collectors dept saying that i have til 8pm tonight to get in touch with them. They want us to pay back £87 per month which is absurd we cannot poss afford that..otherwise if we want to pay a reduced amount we have to give them a full income and expenditures list of everything including car reg, bank account with full rights to go into account and nosey around all so they can reduce the monthly amount that we "owe" them. If not they say court proceedings will start tomorrow...

they say i cant appeal against the appeal unless ive got fresh evidence or it will automatically be refused again...HELP wot do i do?? do i phone them and give them rights to my life or is there a way around it?

Such a mess...

mummyyummy_2

anyone....my time is running out??

MXW

mummyyummy wrote: »

at least it feels like it...they say we owe £1045 in overpayment from 03 back to them but we dont...i appealed ages ago and they still say i still owe them it. Got a letter, then a phone call cpl days ago from inland revenue debt collectors dept saying that i have til 8pm tonight to get in touch with them. They want us to pay back £87 per month which is absurd we cannot poss afford that..otherwise if we want to pay a reduced amount we have to give them a full income and expenditures list of everything including car reg, bank account with full rights to go into account and nosey around all so they can reduce the monthly amount that we "owe" them. If not they say court proceedings will start tomorrow...

they say i cant appeal against the appeal unless ive got fresh evidence or it will automatically be refused again...HELP wot do i do?? do i phone them and give them rights to my life or is there a way around it?

Such a mess...

You say that you don't owe the money. When you appealed against the assessments did you give your reasons as to why you don't owe the money and send documentry evidence to support your appeal?

kelloggs36

Why do you not owe them the money? Is it a real official error or did you not check your papers etc? If you really don't owe them the money then you need to go to your MP who will get it sorted much quicker than you can yourself. I had this problem - it was actually a computer error which doubled our incomes which threw up an overpayment which did not exist because the assessment had been done using the correct information, but a year later the computer doubled the income which made it think that it had paid us in error. It took a year to sort out and they ended up paying us compensation on top of refunding the amount they had recovered! But it took my MP to do it though.

mummyyummy_2

kellogs, was your original appeal knocked back by them? mine was and im not sure wot to do now coz they say i only had til 8pm tonight to sort out payment details with them...do u know how to appeal an appeal? at what stage did your mp get involved?

Morglin

Try this:

http://www.taxaid.org.uk/

Lin

System

You have the right to ask for a review of their original decision providing you give them new evidence to support your assertion that you don't owe them the money. If you just write in and tell them you disagree then you will be sent a standard letter telling you that you haven't provided any NEW evidence and so the original decision stands.

Re them wanting your income and expenditure details - I have seen repayment agreements set up to repay over several years after the TCO have looked at those details so if you have to pay it back and you can't afford it then that's what you have to do to get the repayments you can manage

welshcakes

I think I'll take up the MP option too. I was hit with a demand to repay tax credits for 2003/4 and when I originally had the damand in 2005, I did as I suspect a lot of people did and started repaying monthly without questioning it or asking for the resaon why they had decided I had been overpaid.

Last year I had to give up working to look after my disabled partner and joined this site; only then did I become aware that there are a mass amount of errors surrounding the Tax Credit assessments and decisions and as a consequence I questioned the resaon for the decision (as I had just assumed it was to do with number crunching and I had always automatically assumed as part of the Inland Revenue, their decision must be right and beyond reproach).

After several calls to them promising to send info that never arrived, I finally lost my rag and got really 'juicy' with the person on the other end of the phone and finally I had the reasons for the decision sent to me. I was astounded to discover it was because they had for some reason decided that I had a partner during that period that I hadn't told them about ... well, unless it was the Invisible Man, it was the first I knew of a mysterious partner.

I filled in yet another Dispute Form (inadequate as they are because there isn't apparently a form available for people like me who haven't been overpaid and are actually disputing that the decision is wrong because the information it is based on is wrong).

Suddenly, no more demands, no more anything. I have rung three times in last 6 weeks and been told either they haven't received my Dispute or yes they have and it's in the system awaiting processing... very frustrating.

It is extremely worrying that these are the civil servants that can make or break a families finances and cause huge stress to the claimant by giving continually wrong or conflicting information depending on whether the system is working or the level of training the staff member has been given.

I reckon during 2005 I paid back about a £1k of the £2.5k originally demanded so now I will have to fight to have that refunded, but can't even start until they address the fact that their system has deposited a 'partner' on my file even though I was well and truely a struggling single parent with a double bed to myself 365 days a year (yes, that's how lonely it was!).

Reminds me of the phrase, banging your head against a brick wall

kelloggs36

I never appealed. I just rang them and they told me about the computer error, but could not stop the recovery of the non-existent overpayment and letters kept coming about the overpayment. I kept responding by telling them that there was no overpayment, but they kept telling me to appeal. In the end I got so fed up that I just took it to my MP. I felt (like Welshcakes) that they were asking me why I could justify not repaying an overpayment - but they don't seem to acknowledge is that I was not disputing an overpayment as such, but the calculation of the assessment which in turn created a fictitious overpayment.

Three_Dancing_Dragons

Don't be afraid to turn up at the court with your financial details to contest their motion. No magistrate will force you to repay more than you can afford, he's liable to tell them to go away and try again with a more reasonable sum.

creamtea_2

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/taxmistakes/

and for advice
http://www.taxcreditoverpayment.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/2.html

fantastic support. good luck