Invalid tax credit's payments - will i go to court?

fridgeracer

hello all,

i have been working since april 2012 as a self employed courier, on behalf of a national company that labels me as self employed, forces me to use my own car and fuel, clothes, equipment to do my job, and pays peanuts for the work i do.

i was told, that i may be entitled to working tax credits as a single person because i am not married yet.

i started that application around august 2012, so i have been receiving payments for working tax credits for the tax years 2012-2013, 2013-2014, and from april 2014-june 2014.

i phoned up to provide my details / changes of circumstances since i got my renewal notice.

the lady i spoke to asked me about my circumstances and so on and i came to the point where i mentioned i live with my partner. she asked me how long that has been for and i said, well, you should know. i told you i was living with my partner when i first applied, however it's been since april 2011 if you must know.

she said the entire claim was invalid because i didn't apply as a couple. i said to her that we aren't a couple because we are not married and their office was clear about that when i applied. i never gave them the impression that i was living on my own. even my council knows i live with my partner because that's the rate i pay for my council tax.

she insisted that the documentation on paper says that a couple is someone married or living with someone as if you were married, and i found that bit on the papers i received but it is worded in a way that is misleading in my opinion. i read the papers word for word when i applied the first time and i never noticed a part that said "as if you were married". i could have sworn i saw "couples are classed as people married or in a civil partnership". i didn't see anything saying "as if you were married" and that's why i made the claim based on a single claim and not a joint one.

so now i have 2 letters. 1 tells me at the last page "amount due from you - £2172 which appears to be the amount for almost the whole period of claiming. the other letter says i have been overpaid £417.81 for 2014-2015.

why on earth do i have to pay all of this back? if i was mistaken by the single claim and not doing it as a joint claim - why can they not just change the claim to the circumstances as they would be put down for a joint claim and work out the difference? i.e. my partner has been working since around august to sept 2013 and has had 5 jobs in total so far so there have been breaks of employment throughout this time up until now. she has also not been earning a whole lot either, below the minimum wage for sure and not anywhere close to 38-40 hours a week.

if i have to pay back anything, i should pay back the difference for what i would owe under a joint claim circumstance, i.e. if i was entitled to £1.5 or even £1K of tax credits all this time, then i should pay back the difference from the 2172K not the entire bloody amount. right?

so what happens to me now? is this fraud because i did the claim wrong? do i go to court if i refuse to pay all this money back? if i have to pay it all back, how can i? i don't have 2K something quid lying around, i have absolutely nothing and i live in my overdraft all year long because i barely make any money to afford to live normally in line with the cost of living. the only thing i have available is my flat which i have on a mortgage, so i could pay when i sell and use some of the equity money to pay but i cannot do that until i am able to sell - and that depends on me working for another year as self employed to get another self assessment form (bank wants 3 years worth) and my partner keeps her new employed job for 3-6 months minimum before we even apply AND that will only ever happen if we get to sell the flat for £125K which would give me £41K gross equity, net would be around £28K once all the fees, debt, has been paid off.

i had no idea i did it wrong, i checked and read what i was told and made my claim based on what i thought was right. who in this country deemed it right to brand someone as a couple if they are not married but living together? that's an entirely new one to me.

help and advice please. thank you.

haras_nosirrah

But if people were only deemed a couple if married then financially it would make everyone worse off if they got married. A woman could have children, be living with but not married to the father and claim benefits as a single not earning parent despite the fact that dad earns more that enough to support his family. It would be open up to a world of abuse.

Best bet is to find out what you would be entitled to as a couple and see of you can just pay back the difference

daphnemoon

Sorry to hear of your troubles and I hope you get it sorted out quickly and you don't have to pay too much money back.

I have heard of people that have been housemates or friends sharing a house who are not in a relationship that have had to prove that they are not "living together as if married". The DWP have even sent people round to interview one or all the people living under the same roof and are making a single claim for benefit. The onus is on the applicant to prove the assumption of being a couple is not true!!! I assume that the HMRC work to similar rules, procedures and actions.

If people have to prove this so the DWP or HMRC can't incorrectly change the application to a joint one it's only fair that people who are a couple living together should correctly have a joint claim.

Icequeen99

blondebubbles wrote: »

The advice you have been given is correct.

If you live with a partner you claim as a couple whether married, in a civil partnership or just living together as a couple This is not something new.

Who was it that told you, you could claim as a single person because you weren't married? Tax credits? A friend? Another government dept?

I believe that if you now make a joint claim, tax credits will consider "notional entitlement" where they will look at what you should have been entitled to as a couple and compare this to what you received as a single person. Details are here - http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/tcmanual/tcm0228220.htm however I believe the poster known as IceQueen99 knows more about this.

BB is right, what you have been told is correct. I have looked back at the 12/13 notes (http://www.revenuebenefits.org.uk/pdf/TC600_notes.pdf) that accompany the claim form and it clearly states that you must also claim as a couple if you are living together as a married couple.

So, the overpayment is correct. BB has mentioned notional entitlement, which is where they reduce the overpayment by the amount you would have got on a joint claim. However, that is getting harder to get because if they say it was deliberate, which they often do by saying you should have known you were part of a couple, then they will not give it.

If you told someone on the phone at HMRC that you were in a relationship and they gave you wrong advice you may be able to get it written off - but you would need evidence.

IQ

fridgeracer

Icequeen99 wrote: »

If you told someone on the phone at HMRC that you were in a relationship and they gave you wrong advice you may be able to get it written off - but you would need evidence.

i swear, i was told it was not a problem and that i am single and not a couple.

but, this was in 2012. i don't have any evidence and neither do they, and neither would they give it if they did probably.

i managed to get through after 1 hour of waiting and was pretty much told no, and i have to pay everything.

the only good thing however is the adviser said that it is not considered a debt at all, and that however long i negotiate the repayment terms and the amount, will never have any interest or fees / fines added to it.

so if i were to only be able afford £40 pm / £10 a week for the forseeable future where it would be paid off in 4.5 years it apparently would be fine by them and there would be no added debt to the already outstanding figure.

i've been craping myself all afternoon assuming they wanted all this money back now and that if i couldn't pay it i would go to jail.

ugghhh. headache.

xylophone

have been working since april 2012 as a self employed courier, on behalf of a national company that labels me as self employed, forces me to use my own car and fuel, clothes, equipment to do my job, and pays peanuts for the work i do.

What do HMRC consider your status to be?http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/working/intro/empstatus.htm

Icequeen99

fridgeracer wrote: »

i swear, i was told it was not a problem and that i am single and not a couple.

but, this was in 2012. i don't have any evidence and neither do they, and neither would they give it if they did probably.

i managed to get through after 1 hour of waiting and was pretty much told no, and i have to pay everything.

the only good thing however is the adviser said that it is not considered a debt at all, and that however long i negotiate the repayment terms and the amount, will never have any interest or fees / fines added to it.

so if i were to only be able afford £40 pm / £10 a week for the forseeable future where it would be paid off in 4.5 years it apparently would be fine by them and there would be no added debt to the already outstanding figure.

i've been craping myself all afternoon assuming they wanted all this money back now and that if i couldn't pay it i would go to jail.

ugghhh. headache.

You can do a data protection request and get copies of the phone calls which you can then use to dispute it. They have to give you copies of them. Did you get this advice before you claimed? What did you actually say to them?

It is a debt and it is up to debt management to decide if what you are offering is reasonable based on your circumstances and income. They can take it back through tax codes if you get an employed job.

IQ

fridgeracer

Icequeen99 wrote: »

It is a debt and it is up to debt management to decide if what you are offering is reasonable based on your circumstances and income. They can take it back through tax codes if you get an employed job.

IQ

well that's not what the specialized advisor told me that i waited for over 1 hour to speak to.

he said that so long as anybody given a "notice to pay" letter always responds and communicates then there will never be a consideration that the money owed is treated as debt, as in, credit card debt where all money owed is paid back along with interest and any other fees.

he said so long as an agreed amount per month is paid back and on time all the time, no amount of interest or other charges will ever be added to the amount owed. i.e. the amount owed will stay exactly the same as it was from day 1 of being owed right up until the end 4.5 to 5 years later. you only pay back the owed sum, not any other fees or interest.

so, sure, it's a debt that needs to be paid but it's a far more lenient timescale than of a loan or a credit card debt and is not used to make extra profit off the person who claimed tax credits.

that was a very recent phone call so if any one of them disputes what i have said here on this reply then i will for sure get the phone call logs up on that one.

as for what happened at the time of claiming... all i said was that i wanted to claim. they asked me if i was single. i said what does that mean? they asked, are you married to anybody or living with someone as part of a civil partnership. i said no. they said, ok you should make the claim as a single person.

no one said, if you are living with someone that is your sexual partner and living as if it were a marriage, then you are a couple. it might have said that in the notes but i do not recall seeing that clearly in the notes and no one over the phone mentioned it to me either. i can see it now, but it's 1 lousy small line. very easy to overlook. i overlooked it easily. it's unfair how they put that very important clause in 1 small 1 line sentence where everything else is explained in detail in paragraphs yet that is a 1 liner. total scam if you ask me.

DaveTheMus

fridgeracer wrote: »

i can see it now, but it's 1 lousy small line. very easy to overlook. i overlooked it easily. it's unfair how they put that very important clause in 1 small 1 line sentence where everything else is explained in detail in paragraphs yet that is a 1 liner. total scam if you ask me.

Not that difficult if you think about it.....

Let's say you're at a party....

Someone asks you; 'Are you single?'

You would answer; 'No, I live with (partners name), we've been together 3 years.'

Hardly a scam...

fridgeracer

DaveTheMus wrote: »

Not that difficult if you think about it.....

Let's say you're at a party....

Someone asks you; 'Are you single?'

You would answer; 'No, I live with (partners name), we've been together 3 years.'

Hardly a scam...

you misinterpret where i am coming from.

i have spent years wondering what i select when i fill in forms / applications:

single, married, civil partner, widowed, divorced, common law, bla bla bla bla bla.

i always come to the point of asking people, what the hell am i supposed to be? single, common law, or civil partner?

some people say you are always single unless married. some people say you are common law if you are with a partner i.e. girlfriend / fiance, but then you get some OTHER people such as a bank that will reject a joint mortgage application unless you are married to the person you are joint applying for a mortgage which makes ME think, fine, it's supposed to always be single in that case.

then you have the !!!!!! use of words "civil partner". when i was at school, the only thing i learn't about the word civil was: civilization, civilian, civil war. where does the word civil fit in with someone being a homosexual? it's a poorly chosen use of words in the english language and for the longest time i had no idea a civil partnership actually mean't 2 gay or lesbian or bi people in a relationship.

i sometimes on forms and applications put down civil partner because that was the only option remotely related to saying "in a relationship". once i found out i was telling people i was gay, when i wasn't, i wondered what on earth do i select then? some forms give you different options. some don't even put common law down, and i had no idea what common law meant anyway. so it goes around in circles and oh sod it - choose the single one. im not married, so i must be single.

then that leaves me with the other mystery. what do you call transgender people in a relationship? if a man becomes a woman, is that man now classed as "female" when filling out forms, or is it still male? it's all !!!!!!!! and confusing.

this is why i came to the conclusion that i should put down single when i applied, because i thought i was single. i thought at the time that it didn't matter in the eyes of the law that i had a girlfriend - so long as i was not married to her or i was not having sex with a guy, i was a single person.

this idea of branding people as a couple if they are living together as partners purely out of a verbal and mutual relationship not documented anywhere in a court of law or marriage licence is just a money and tax grab.

what if people are emotionally unstable and break up 10 times in a month and end up on the jeremy kyle show? do they get a reduction in their council tax bill 10 times in that month because they went from a couple to a single person 10 times? do they tell the council 10 times "i broke up im now single". "hi again i called you yesterday, we got back together again so please change the bill to a couple's rate".

it's rubbish. and it's unfair. had that clause been explained a bit more in the form of a paragraph i would have seen it and although i don't agree with it i would have had the information to know better. furthermore, no one on the phone when i asked about applying told me otherwise.

i blame my parents, but most of all, i blame the english education curriculum. im 27 now and im still learning some things kids in other european countries like germany and italy already know at the age of 17. but hey, at least i got the NHS covering me for my crohn's disease. woop woop!

sueturnersmith

Fridgeracer, your style seems remarkably similar to that of a previous poster. Your name wouldn't be Andy, would it?

By the way, there is legally no such term as 'common law' relationship. And if a person who is living with a partner were to be treated as single for tax benefit purposes, then this would surely be discriminating married couples? I don't think any government would favour unmarried couples over married couples!