working tax credit want to stop my mums payments and also want a massive chunk back

bridesmaid2013

How do I go about helping my mum who is very worried and losing sleep and hardly eating due to tax credits wanting to stop her payments and have her pay back over 2000 pound when she only earns about 8 grand a year all because she didnt work 30 hours every week last year through no fault of her own from her 3 jobs at the age of 57 and just having her knee replaced and can hardly walk!

princessdon

What date did she tell them she wasn't working 30 hours?

Was she on sick pay?

Did she claim ESA?

help4help2013

the thing with working tax credit is you have to work a min of 30 hours per week i know a few people who have been in this situation where they have only worked 28 hours a week but they base it on the fact that they think you will continue to work 30 hours a week for the tax year.

they will most likely say she has failed to inform the of a change in circumstances which the usually do and it will then be classed as an overpayment they can either take it out of her new tax credit award or come to an arrangement to pay the over payment back if not in full then in instalments that she can afford i have seen this happen a few times and i know it can be worrying.

has she not thought about putting a claim on for ESA (employment support allowance )? as she has had a knee replacement? it might be worth having a looking into it

https://www.gov.uk/employment-support-allowance/overview

princessdon

You have to advise of a change in hours, did she? How many weeks has she worked under 30? Is she on SSP? If so how long, I'm not being nosy, but we can't help without knowing how many weeks she worked and was paid under 30 hours and did she claim SSP for full weeks and how long

seven-day-weekend

But if she did not work 30 hours she was not entitled to receive tax credits, so why do you think they should not claim them back?

I'm sure they will be able to come to some arrangement about paying them back.

midnight_express

She wasn't entitled to the money so she has to pay it back. They will allow her time to pay. If you really want to help you could give her the money.

Icequeen99

OP - we need more information. Her 'normal' working hours need to be 30. It doesn't have to be 30 every single week, there is a small amount of scope to have a couple below 30.

You need to tell us whether she was off sick, if so how often and did she claim anything (sick pay etc....). You also need to tell us how many weeks did she not work 30 hours a week.

Also, are you sure that they have done it right? Does the letter she received mention that they have taken her pay and divided it by 52 weeks and national minimum wage to work out she didn't work 30 hours. If so, this is incorrect and it could be that because of her sickness periods HMRC have calculated it incorrectly.

IQ

MissMoneypenny

Icequeen99 wrote: »

You also need to tell us how many weeks did she not work 30 hours a week.

If she only earned 8k, then even on minimum wage, she was well under the 30 hours.

Didn't they change from 16 hours per week to 30 hours per week for the over 50s last year? Perhaps this is what caught her out?

Icequeen99

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

If she only earned 8k, then even on minimum wage, she was well under the 30 hours.

Didn't they change from 16 hours per week to 30 hours per week for the over 50s last year? Perhaps this is what caught her out?

But she would only be 9 weeks short - that could be explained if she was on sick leave or had any unpaid periods of absence or gaps between jobs less than 7 days.

The 50+ was abolished from April 2012. But you only got it for 12 months anyway.

IQ

MissMoneypenny

I never realised it was just for 12 months.

Lets hope the OP comes back and gives the relevant details.