HMRC after money paid in error

britesprite

I hope this is the right forum to be positing this in ... many apologies if not or if a similar thread's sorted this kind of query and I'm just too blind to see it

Also, I'm cross posting this to Taxation Web.

Long story short ... Last year HMRC paid my wife a tax rebate of about £1300. Thinking nothing of it she took it and banked it ... she gets a rebate like that every year.

This year the same cheque arrived, but my wife was suspicious because it came in the wrong month. So she phoned and discovered that the cheque was in error an could we please return it. So we did.

(We're not 100% sure why the cheques were issued .. my wife is employed and pays PAYE but has to do SA because of a small trust fund income. For some reason PAYE seem to have started issuing rebates independently of her SA returns).

Now today out of the blue we get a demand from HMRC for £1295 dating back to the cheque from last year.

HMRC happily admit the payment was their fault but nevertheless want the money back. Fair enough (although exceedingly annoying, esp as it was us which noticed their error!). But we don't have £1295 lying around somewhere... in fact we're surviving at about £100 above our £4700 overdraft limit every month!

A few phone calls later and HMRC agree to take £30 per month until the next rebate, which they'll snaffle in total probably leaving us with a small sum left to repay.

The trouble is we're inching towards that going broke level and were relying on the rebate to float us again. Unless we get it ... well I don't even want to think about that.

So ... two questions...
1) can we get HMRC not to snaffle the rebate but let us continue on £30/month? I'm thinking esp of the fact we have children and you're talking about diet etc hardship for them if we have to cut back any further.
2) we've been given this address to write to, does anyone know of a better one?
DMB Complaints Team
Victoria Street
Shipley
Yorkshire
BD98 8AA
I don't really want to complain ... I just want to make the point HMRC are forcing us into a terrible situation and will they **please** reconsider.

Many thanks in advance

kitty1801

Hi

Probably not the answer you want to hear, but while you have a debt with HMRC, they won't issue any repayments until it's cleared.

How does your wife manage to pay £1300 a year too much anyway? If you could work out where that's coming from and stop it happening in year, your net income will be higher and you shouldn't need to wait for a repayment at the end of the year.

britesprite

Thanks kitty1801.

You're right not the answer I wanted to hear. Still, not wholly surprising either. I shall write, do what I can and hope the bank will be a little more understanding.

Why the rebate is another long running battle. It's to do with the local council (who're my wife's employers) and the fact their payroll system's up the creek. They're in the process of sorting it out but a new IT system managed to short pay her by £200 last month, so no speedy fixes in sight.