Tax credits investigating me please help

tomtontom

pmlindyloo wrote: »

As you have found child benefit can be awarded to the non resident parent (ie. the father) if they have some financial responsibility for them.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/ccmmanual/ccm18010.htm

However, the same does not apply to child tax credits. The child must be living with the parent for child tax credits to be eligible.

Therefore I am wondering if a letter from the father saying that he has been granted CB but confirms that you are the parent with residence may help.

Did the child's father receive a letter from CB confirming this? That may also be useful.

And HB can only include children that are resident with the claiming parent.

julieph66

pmlindyloo and tomtontom, there is no way the father would do anything for me! Our split was very acrimonious and is getting worse.
We currently share the care of our daughter so she lives with both of us. I claim the tax credits because I pay for more of her care than he does. I only stopped getting CB because I requested to stop getting it. He then requested it as he told me he couldn't claim HB without it and as he is on a very low wage he still needed to be able to provide somewhere suitable for when my daughter stays with him.
I telephoned the TC office before I gave CB up to check it wouldnt affect my claim in any way and they said no!
Yesterday I received a letter from them saying I now owe them all of the last 18 months Tax credits too.
It's just going from bad to worse

pmlindyloo

tomtontom wrote: »

And HB can only include children that are resident with the claiming parent.

Agree, but according to this

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/226237/a4-2012.pdf

page 9

this is determined, where there is shared care, by who is awarded CB for them.

I don't know whether this has been changed (link from 2011, if I remember correctly) but it does seem strange since CB can be awarded when the child is not resident! I suppose they can't use child tax credits as a criteria as not everyone is entitled to it.

Very strange.

pmlindyloo

julieph66 wrote: »

pmlindyloo and tomtontom, there is no way the father would do anything for me! Our split was very acrimonious and is getting worse.
We currently share the care of our daughter so she lives with both of us. I claim the tax credits because I pay for more of her care than he does. I only stopped getting CB because I requested to stop getting it. He then requested it as he told me he couldn't claim HB without it and as he is on a very low wage he still needed to be able to provide somewhere suitable for when my daughter stays with him.
I telephoned the TC office before I gave CB up to check it wouldnt affect my claim in any way and they said no!
Yesterday I received a letter from them saying I now owe them all of the last 18 months Tax credits too.
It's just going from bad to worse

You need to dispute this:

https://www.gov.uk/tax-credits-overpayments/dispute-form-tc846

Any chance that you noted the date and the name of the person who told you that it wouldn't affect your claim?

tomtontom

julieph66 wrote: »

pmlindyloo and tomtontom, there is no way the father would do anything for me! Our split was very acrimonious and is getting worse.
We currently share the care of our daughter so she lives with both of us. I claim the tax credits because I pay for more of her care than he does. I only stopped getting CB because I requested to stop getting it. He then requested it as he told me he couldn't claim HB without it and as he is on a very low wage he still needed to be able to provide somewhere suitable for when my daughter stays with him.
I telephoned the TC office before I gave CB up to check it wouldnt affect my claim in any way and they said no!
Yesterday I received a letter from them saying I now owe them all of the last 18 months Tax credits too.
It's just going from bad to worse

If he is not willing to help you then put a claim in for CB as the primary carer. Then HMRC can determine who should receive what.

pmlindyloo

blondebubbles wrote: »

The advice isn't technically incorrect though. The absence of child benefit in itself doesn't change your entitlement to tax credits.

It is just one factor that is checked if querying responsibility for a child because the system assumes that the same parent would claim for both.

It is not uncommon in shared custody cases for one parent to claim the tax credits and the other to claim child benefit.

If tax credits doubted your responsibility for a child they would normally ask more questions eg how many nights the children are there, who pays for clothes/food/toiletries, what address does the school/doctor etc hold for the child.

There is some info here on rival claims: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/ccmmanual/CCM18015.htm

Of course you are right but I think that it is very annoying that not only do they stop the tax credits they also send a letter saying that she has an overpayment before they investigate.

I realise this is done to prevent an overpayment but it is would be better if the advisers were more proactive and explain what claimants should do in these circumstances. So, for instance, they could have advised her when she first rang to send in the evidence that she is deemed the resident parent when she passed the CB to the child father's. Surely this would have prevented an enormous amount of stress and loss of income for the OP?

As it is her tax credits have been stopped, she has been sent a letter of overpayment and it will be weeks before it is sorted out.

I know this is the way many benefit departments work and a lot of the letters are automatically generated but it seems to me that the benefit system is, at times, extremely complicated (and in this case, particularly so). More help and advice from the front line workers could solve a lot of the anguish involved in benefit claims or if this is not possible, then dedicated advisers who are properly trained to whom claimants could be directed.

Vent over!

MissMoneypenny

blondebubbles wrote: »

To be honest, in these type of cases, I haven't ever seen them stop payments before asking for information. Normally they write out and give a timeframe to reply by, if a response isn't reveived by then they'd stop the payments.

Perhaps that is because the father is claiming the child is resident with him, so that he can get the two bedroom rate Housing Benefit?

julieph66

.

Thanks Blondebubbles for the info and you are pretty correct they have asked for receipts for food, clothing, excursions, hobbies, sundries, a letter from the school and anything else I can provide, they also mentioned a doctor's letter but the doctor wont give me one!
And whilst I know the adviser I spoke to couldn't have predicted that my case would be picked up it would have been better if they had told me that there was a possibility. Then I would never have given CB up to him!

julieph66

and thanks PMLINDYLOO for the support!