Tax Credit Appeals

Randall_Flagg

Its been a whilst since I was last on – thank you Telewest….

But I’ve spent an hour or so catching up on the old tax credit posts. Pity that nothing much seems to have changed whilst I’ve been away. One thing that did strike me though is the continued confusion around tax credit appeals and overpayment disputes.

I had to go through all this a couple of years back when I was overpaid and it struck me then that so many people in IR do not seem to grasp what an appeal actually is. It is not surprising when I read all the posts here that tax credits claimants also seem confused about the whole appeals issue.

Based on what I learned from my own case, I’ll provide some information which should hopefully clarify matters.

Firstly, you CANNOT APPEAL AGAINST A DECISION TO RECOVER AN OVERPAYMENT of tax credits. You can however dispute the decision that the overpayment should be recovered. There is an important difference!

Your right of appeal that does exist appears in the Tax Credits Act 2002 (you can find a copy of this Act in the IR’s tax credit manual). As such, this is a statutory right of appeal put in place not by IR but by Parliament. No one, not even IR can stop you from exercising your statutory rights. But you cannot appeal against every decision made by IR. This is why you cannot appeal against a decision TO RECOVER an overpayment. However, you can appeal against the decision that caused the overpayment. So, for example, you claim and are awarded tax credits. When IR check your award after the end of the year, they decide you have been paid too much tax credits and want some back. You cannot appeal against the decision to recover but you can appeal against the decision that you were entitled to less money than what was paid.

The problem seems to be that if you submit an appeal at this stage, IR seem to treat that as a dispute with overpayment recovery and stop your appeal from going forward to an independent tribunal. Instead, they manage the “dispute” in house with, what I found, a totally meaningless process. If that has happened to you and you are unhappy with the decision to continue recovery, you need to contact IR again and remind them that you were not disputing the recovery of the overpayment at this stage but instead you were appealing against the decision that caused the overpayment. I did this and my appeal was eventually (after 10 months) put up to the independent tribunal and I won – the tribunal agreed that I was entitled to the tax credits that I had been paid and so there was no overpayment for IR to recover. In my experience, IR seem reluctant to submit appeals to the independent tribunal and this is wrong. The Convention on Human Rights guarantees a fair and independent hearing in these circumstances (and contrary to one letter I received from IR, it does not only apply to criminal trials), so if IR try and manage your appeal themselves, insist that the appeal is referred to the independent tribunal. I expect that if IR refuse to submit the appeal and eventually start court proceedings to recover the overpayment, you can get these stopped instantly by presenting a copy of your letter of appeal and confirming that the appeal has yet to be heard. The court will appreciate that there can be no overpayment without first a decision on entitlement and that those sorts of decisions are appealable to an independent tribunal. Think about it – if a tribunal decides that there was no overpayment in your case then there is nothing for the IR to recover or the court to get involved with.

Morglin

This site can help with tax issues.

The IR are generally a law unto themselves. :rolleyes:

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

Lin

mummyyummy_2

Hi Randall, thankyou for your helpful post. In a nutshell, my case is IR say they have overpaid me in 2003, but I know the money I received was not over and above what I was entitled to. I appealed a few months ago, this was declined by tco/ir and IR have been chasing me and giving me deadlines etc to pay back this "overpayment", so I phoned tco the other day and they are sending me forms to appeal against the appeal again!! What do you suggest I do now? Reading through your post i am not actually appealing against overpayment but against actual decision that the overpayment should be recovered?? Is this right? What do you suggest I do? Fill out the forms again when they arrive, although they said I need fresh evidence which Im not sure if I have or not..sorry bout the long post, hope you can help me...thx my xx

Randall_Flagg

This is a tricky one because IR did pay too much tax credits out to lots of people in 2003. However if you think the money you received was correct and that there is no overpayment, you are not disputing overpayment recovery. You need to insist that IR give you a breakdown that sets out your entitlement for 2003 and everything it has on record that it paid you, including dates and amounts of the payments. That way, you can see whether you really did receive more than what you are entitled too, and also how any overpayment (if there is one) came about. Then you can decide how to place a dispute.

Also remember that the procedure IR has developed for disputing overpayments is entirely in house. It is not set out in any law so IR's insistence that you provide fresh evidence for your dispute to be considered again is nonsense. You need to start at the beginning by getting the information set out above.

As for appealing (to a tribunal) there is a mximum time limit of 1 year and 30 days for appealing against a decision. You need to ask IR which decision caused the overpayment and when it was taken. If you are in time you can appeal to an independent tribunal. If not, you need to focus on the overpayment dispute.

mummyyummy_2

randalll, thankyou for taking the time to reply to me- your post is really helpful, I will get onto IR and ask for the details of my overpayment. Thanks again my x

creamtea_2

http://www.petitiononline.com/tco1/petition.html