Help With Child Tax Credit Problem needed

Olibubble

I moved back in with Partner in April 2006. We are 90% certain that when she phoned up she notified them that I had moved in. Both my partner and I were on income support when I moved back in. As soon as I moved back in, we changed to a joint claim.

We had no reason to beleive they had not changed our details as we did not expect the amount of tax credit received to change (as we were both on income support).

At the end of the year statement, we noticed they still had details that my partner was claiming income support. They are now asking for the whole year back, saying it is an overpayment.

I cannot understand how they say this is an overpayment because we would have been entitled to exactly the same amount of child tax credit if they had updated their details.

I understand they say it is an overpayment on that claim because it has the wrong details. However I feel it is plain wrong to expect people who are on income support to pay back a whole year due to an administration error. I mean, it isn't as though we wouldn't have been entitled to it and it would serve us no purpose to not let them know I had moved in.

We are asking for an appeal because we feel that the error is their when my partner phoned up. However there is still that 10% of doubt. And I feel it is disgusting to be penalised in such a way due to an administration error.

Has anyone else been in our situation, or knows the system a little better than us, who could give us some advice.

I get the feeling that we are going to have to claim hardship to get the payments reduced. However I feel that is completely wrong to say it is an overpayment due to an admin error - we would have been entitled to that money regardless if my partner was claiming or both claiming.

Sorry for the rant. We are very stressed at the moment as we have another little baby, and we don't want to live on less money with two children then we was previously getting with one.

rchddap1

This is tax credits remember. They are awful and are always making mistakes. I called up a week or so ago to update details and I got a new award letter through the post.

I'm sure that its roughly right....but I'm not risking it and will put a portion of it away in a savings account. If they later decide to claw some back its there for me to draw on. If not...it'll be a nice little nest egg for next summer. Or that's the theory anyway.

bluetimone97

This happened to my husband with JSA and IS, he had been paid IS instead of jobseekers for well over a year, they claimed overpayment and refused to offset the 2 amounts (although they would have been exactly the same), means we effectively had no money to live on for a year or so, which surely cannot be right. I appealed but they upheld it.

welshcakes

I really sincerely empathise with you.

TC Office correspondence comes from the Child Benefit Office (next time you get a letter, look at the return address on the back of the envelope). I informed that very same Child Benefit Office in writing when my daughter remained in school to do AS and A Levels. Child Benefit duly obliged and I continued to receive Child Benefit without a break. TCs however still refuse to recognise that my letter was sufficient for their purposes because it wasn't "accurately addressed to the right department" - it wasn't address to anyone in particular as I naively thought that using the reply address they themselves use was sufficient. Consequently they won't pay the CTC element for my daughter for last year).

Like yourself, I am really seething. If I wasn't entitled to it, fair enough, but I was. TC always declares they can't entertain backdated claims as the system doesn;t allow them to make retrospective alterations but if it's a question of them trying to claw back (even when like the OP, the entitlement was valid), amazingly the systems allow them to retrospectively alter anything they want.

Rant over (I think)

System

welshcakes wrote: »

TC Office correspondence comes from the Child Benefit Office

Correspondence addressed to the Child benefit office is directed to the CBO. Correspondence addressed to the Tax Credit Office is directed to them. You addressed your letter to CBO so that's where it was directed to. CBO have no access to the TCO systems (and vice versa due to data protection) so CBO would not have known you needed the correspondence to be forwarded on to TCO.

Olibubble - when your partner rang up to tell of the change in circumstances she should have received a new award notice detailing the termination of her single claim. If that did not happen then it obviously wasn't terminated. Your partner is therefore liable for the overpayment.

However it might be worth her while asking for a copy of all the calls she has made on her claim so that she can prove she informed them that you had moved in.

Olibubble

If you are able to claim back Tax for up to three years. Why should the child tax credit be only three months?

That way we could backdate our claim for the year and we the tax office can pay back their alleged overpayment?

System

Olibubble wrote: »

If you are able to claim back Tax for up to three years. Why should the child tax credit be only three months?

That way we could backdate our claim for the year and we the tax office can pay back their alleged overpayment?

You can claim tax back for 6 years.

kelloggs36

So Pam17, if the amount of award would have been exactly the same as both were on IS, why would the partner have to pay it back? Surely this would be putting them in extreme poverty, which is what the Government want to avoid? It is common sense to look at the whole case - if there was no entitlement in the first place but they continued to pay, then I could understand it, but if the award does not change, then it really shouldn't matter at all.

Gaz83

IF you didn't phone them up (and I'm not commenting on whether you did or didn't) and a single claim continued when you were living together then TCO are well within their legal rights to claim everything back as an overpayment, and any new application can only be backdated three months.

Your best bet is an appeal.

System

kelloggs36 wrote: »

So Pam17, if the amount of award would have been exactly the same as both were on IS, why would the partner have to pay it back? Surely this would be putting them in extreme poverty, which is what the Government want to avoid? It is common sense to look at the whole case - if there was no entitlement in the first place but they continued to pay, then I could understand it, but if the award does not change, then it really shouldn't matter at all.

The government, supposedly the champions of the working classes and elected by the majority of the British public who bothered to vote, doesn't work on common sense terms and the rules surrounding tax credits overpayments are especially punitive but is it really too much to expect the general public to read their award notices when they are sent out.

If people can fill in forms to claim tax credits they they should read the correspondence that is generated from it and if they don't understand it then they should query it.

You're right though that they would have had entitlement and in fact it might be worth the partners while disputing the overpayment on the grounds that it was not reasonable for them to believe anything was wrong when the entitlement would have been the same in a joint claim. As I said before they should also ask for a copy of their calls to prove they informed the TCO of the change of circumstance.

kelloggs36

I agree that people should check their award and question it, but often people do that and get reassured that the award is correct and still get told that they have been overpaid, so it isn't always down to the customers. But if an award is exactly the same, I would not think it necessary to challenge it as I would have thought that it would be sorted out anyway, but they just don't do that!