Appealing Child Tax Overpaymnet

KevSmith2001

Hi, I am looking to appeal an overpayment of tax child tax credits, please read the following info to offer advice, many thanks in advance :T

In 2011 my wife gave up work to go back to full time education. Previously we recieved £50 a month child tax credits, we informed the tax office who told us there would be no change to payments untill april 2012, this was sept 2011. I thought at that point payments must be made in arrears. May 2012 our payments went up to £260 a month.


May this year my wife finished her course and was to start high school teaching last week. We called at the time to inform the tax office who said they would only change our details once she started her post in August. We informed them her first day and I have ust recieved a letter saying we will now be due them all payments back since April, £1300!!

I feel we did all we could and it was reasonable to believe that the tax credits were paid in arrears as we built up debt the first year my wife was a student as we were told it would not change untill the following april!

If anyone can make any sense of what I have said, any advice would be much appreciated

Icequeen99

blondebubbles wrote: »

First of all you cannot appeal an overpayment but there is a dispute process.

Appeals are used if you disagree with a decision they have made eg if you wanted to claim the disability element and they disagreed or you are claiming as a single person but they believe you are a couple.

Before you begin to go down this route you need to know the reason for the overpayment. Do you know this as yet?

Have you completed the renewal form?

Or is it because the household income is now too high?

Or some other reason?

BB is absolutely right. Without knowing what period the overpayment is for and the actual cause of the overpayment it is difficult to say.

It is possible to have a tax credits overpayment when circumstances and income changes even if you tell them when it happens because of how tax credits are calculated.

IQ

KevSmith2001

Hi thanks for replying, I had wrote appeal but I did mean dispute

The overpayment I'm sure is due to my wife now earning a teachers wage.

My dispute is when my wife finished her training in May we informed the tax office that she was starting as a teacher in August. We were told that they would not make any changes until my wife started her job they then continued to pay the credits, which has resulted in the overpayment.
We have now recieved a notice of overpayment BUT they are refusing to stop paying us until April which will result in an even bigger overpayment!
I also believe that if we have been overpaid because of my wife's new job then why would the credits have been held back the first year she was a student, we didn't recieve an extra penny until her second year because the payments were worked out on the previous years earnings.

I feel if we are due this years overpayment then we have missed out a year on credits in the past?

I sorry for the long story but it's hard to explain