How will tax credits ask to be paid back past the £3k limit?

fat-pudding

Hi all,

For the tax year 2012-2013 we were claiming WTC and CTC based on my estimated income for the year. What happened though was in February/March this year I was given a huge pay rise at work with promotion to a management position and also given a large bonus at the same time as my boss felt that I deserved it as I'd been carrying out the position for the past year (although I wish he'd put it into this tax year now!)

Obviously this put my estimated salary that I had given for tax credits out the window somewhat (and already I was going to come in a bit over due to call out fees that I'd already collected!).

Anyway, after the end of year I'm no longer entitled to tax credits and have an overpayment somewhere in the region of £3700.

I'm quite happy to pay this back as quite obviously the money isn't mine but it will be almost impossible for me to pay it back in one lump sum (unless I take out a loan) but I can afford to pay it back over a year.

As yet I've heard nothing about paying it back just a statement of the level of overpayment but I've read for overpayments of this scale they expect the money back in 1 lump sum which is quite simply a no can do for me, are the tax credits people open to negotiations on paying the money back over a year or other period of time?

midnight_express

They will give you at least a year to pay it back.

princessdon

I've no experience with tax credits but reports on here lean towards a payment schedule. With HMRC we had a 12k tax bill following redundancy as they only taxed the over 3ok at basic rate not 40%. Even though we had the money in the bank they just said - 3 years is reasonable to pay it over. They never asked for proof we couldn't pay, just set up a 3 year plan.

Just ring them and say you are happy to repay, offer the amount you can afford and take it from there.

Congratulations on your promotion

[Deleted User]

I owed something similar, offered them £1 per week 4 years ago, they still haven't contacted me about it. They also said they could not reduce further awards as I needed to repay - but they have done more recently and I still see the balance on my recent renewals. We will see. :-)

fat-pudding

OK, that all sounds good! There will be no future awards as I'm now earning too much to have any entitlement to tax credits (unless I lose my job or we have more children!) so I hope I can spread repayments over a couple of years. I know it's a bit cheeky but we're clearing other debts and I'm paying interest on some of them so would prefer to put more money into those to save on the interest payment so if I can use some of this overpayment as an interest free loan then it's a bonus for me getting to debt free more quickly.

I'm still waiting to hear back about repaying but want to know what happens before they get in touch!

UnderPressure

fat-pudding wrote: »

OK, that all sounds good! There will be no future awards as I'm now earning too much to have any entitlement to tax credits (unless I lose my job or we have more children!) so I hope I can spread repayments over a couple of years. I know it's a bit cheeky but we're clearing other debts and I'm paying interest on some of them so would prefer to put more money into those to save on the interest payment so if I can use some of this overpayment as an interest free loan then it's a bonus for me getting to debt free more quickly.

I'm still waiting to hear back about repaying but want to know what happens before they get in touch!

You see that is where it is all wrong, your priority should be paying back this over payment then after that your unsecured debts, from a moral point of view more than anything I am sure you would have had something to say if HMRC had said something similar to you when you applied for tax credits.

I also find you attitude to a £3700 over payment that is totally your fault quite blazay, if I am being totally honest, why did you not telephone them at the time of your promotion and inform them of you pay rise?

I would not be so quick to think that this will all pan out the way you are thinking, if I was you I would be worried sick now until they had decided what they were going to do with me for all you know there may well be an investigation team looking at this deciding if you have committed fraud or not, don't mean to worry you but this is quite serious and your priority should be to HMRC.

fat-pudding

UnderPressure wrote: »

I also find you attitude to a £3700 over payment that is totally your fault quite blazay, if I am being totally honest, why did you not telephone them at the time of your promotion and inform them of you pay rise?

I can tell that you're not the brightest as you obviously didn't read what was written as I did tell them about the pay rise and the bonus, so as I already explained and you chose to ignore this happened very near to the end of the tax year so it was too late to stop all the payments as they had already been made.

Perhaps I should have refused the promotion, pay rise and bonus then? If it had have happened in *this* tax year then there would have not been an overpayment!

Anyhow, you can moralise all you want, quite frankly I don't care what someone like you thinks as you're trying to find an argument that doesn't exist. :rotfl:

fat-pudding

UnderPressure wrote: »

I would not be so quick to think that this will all pan out the way you are thinking, if I was you I would be worried sick now until they had decided what they were going to do with me for all you know there may well be an investigation team looking at this deciding if you have committed fraud or not, don't mean to worry you but this is quite serious and your priority should be to HMRC.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: I mean you honestly think they will try to prosecute me for fraud for telling them that I got a pay rise and promotion with a bonus when they can have all documentation from my employer and pay slips to prove when it happened. You need to get a life instead of trolling message boards.

UnderPressure

fat-pudding wrote: »

I can tell that you're not the brightest as you obviously didn't read what was written as I did tell them about the pay rise and the bonus, so as I already explained and you chose to ignore this happened very near to the end of the tax year so it was too late to stop all the payments as they had already been made.

Perhaps I should have refused the promotion, pay rise and bonus then? If it had have happened in *this* tax year then there would have not been an overpayment!

Anyhow, you can moralise all you want, quite frankly I don't care what someone like you thinks as you're trying to find an argument that doesn't exist. :rotfl:

I can find nothing at all in your first post that says you told them of your increase and bonus?

Ruby_woo

well said fat pudding. there are too many folks on here just trying to goad folks today. Its really pathetic.

You will be fine. I have had to do quite a bit of research on tc overpayments on behalf of a friend this week, and i have learnt so muchabout it all compared to dwp overpayments.

take care and i sincerely hope the other poster hasnt upset you. You may be strong enough to take it not everyone is though....

fat-pudding

UnderPressure wrote: »

You see that is where it is all wrong, your priority should be paying back this over payment then after that your unsecured debts, from a moral point of view more than anything I am sure you would have had something to say if HMRC had said something similar to you when you applied for tax credits.

One other point, they've not even asked for the money yet and said they will be in touch so how do you expect me to pay this back. You really are not reading posts just looking for a fight, seriously grow up.