My tax credit experience.

TCannoyed

Just wondered if anyone had been through a similar experience to this. bear with me please. Its taken a while to half understand it myself.

Feb 2003: Initial payments based on joint income of £9718 from 2001-02.
Allowance=£1991.04 CTC and £1925.56 WTC. (Full amounts?)

Apr 2003: Amounts confirmed. Only one earner at time. We have one child.

Feb 2004: Partner started Part time work. Hours increased so realising the total amount would be well in excess of £9718 we informed TC hotline. We gave est £17,000 income for year 03-04

Amount of WTC reduced to £156.22. CTC unchanged. Overpaid £1543.16

Apr 2004: Amount earned confirmed as £17164. Strangely our WTC was lost altogether and CTC was reduced to £1460.08.
HOW can earning £164 more than anticipated lose us nearly £700?

May 2004: New amounts confirmed based on same income. £1991.04 CTC and £95.54 WTC. WHAT changed their minds?

June 2004: New amounts again based on same income. £2175.40 CTC and £3073.10 WTC. Rang the hotline up again. Man on other end of phone was convinced the figures were right and that all of it added up. I said there is no way they can be correct. After a 20 minute argument he said he change it back to what the figures were before. Subsequently i was sent another letter.
CTC £1991.04 WTC £95.54.

July 2004: Same income. New amounts. CTC £1460.08 WTC £0

All these documents kept telling me i owed amounts but i couldnt make head nor tail of them they are so confusing. I then just thought i would leave it and wait and see.

Oct 2004: Apparantly i had made a recent change. What it was i dont know but it altered my allowance back up to. CTC £1991.04 and WTC £95.54.

While all these letters came through my letterbox, WTC on wages was paid more or less continously apart from May, June and July 2004 and also nothing since Christmas. CTC into my bank account apart from a blip in Mar 2004, and then nothing since july 2004.
Until now. There appears to have been a couple of payments of CTC in the last couple of weeks.

All the while i have had no indication via letter they would stop or start any payments. Just a load of gobbledygook on the back of the letters which always seem to contradict itself.

Unfortunately my partner is going part time so they can care for a relative meaning a dreaded change of circumstances.
I dont know if i can bear ringing them!

Anyone had a similar experience?

dag_2

My word that's complicated - but it sounds like most of the complications were created by them rather than you. Which isn't unusual. And ...

All these documents kept telling me i owed amounts but i couldnt make head nor tail of them they are so confusing. I then just thought i would leave it and wait and see.

Me too.

All the while i have had no indication via letter they would stop or start any payments. Just a load of gobbledygook on the back of the letters which always seem to contradict itself.

Same here. You're in good company.

Have they started chasing after so-called "overpayments" yet?

TCannoyed

Not sure about that yet. Though on some of the forms they say they are going to collect for overpayments. Maybe thats why the CTCs were stopped for a while. Then the WTCs. in fact up until a couple of weeks ago we had been given no TCs since December.

Just an example of how ridiculous the 'explanation' sheets are.

July 2004:CTC's

Full amount £1460.08
Less amount already paid to you for this period £493.54
Less the amount you owe us from previous years £13.89
Less the amount you have paid that is set against overpayments in other award periods £66.48
Amount to be paid £835.69

October 2004:CTC's (after no change in circumstances)

Full amount £1991.04
Amount you owe to be collected from future years £66.48
Less amount we have already paid you for this period £2057.52

And this is just the CTC's. The WTC's are just as complicated.
Which one am i supposed to believe?
If anyone can make any sense of the amounts please let me know. It just hurts my head every time i attempt to add it all up.

mandym

All of the above!!

Since last September I have not had a Tax Credit award notice (and there have been many!) that has actually tallied with the amounts they were paying me.

CIS

I manage to calculate my award to within a few quid each time, if you want somehelp to calculate and check the figures Iam willing to help. If you want just PM me.

irs101

The first few things look OK, but then it seems to go wrong. Main thing this shows though is how awful IR are at explaining the system, even when they get it right!

Feb 2003: Initial payments based on joint income of £9718 from 2001-02.
Allowance=£1991.04 CTC and £1925.56 WTC. (Full amounts?)

Looks right. Maximum CTC, tapered WTC.

Feb 2004: Partner started Part time work. Hours increased so realising the total amount would be well in excess of £9718 we informed TC hotline. We gave est £17,000 income for year 03-04

Amount of WTC reduced to £156.22. CTC unchanged. Overpaid £1543.16

So you were receiving too much for the first 10 months of the year, resulting in the overpayment. But you do get a £2,500 allowance, meaning that they base your revised award effectively on £14,500.

Apr 2004: Amount earned confirmed as £17164. Strangely our WTC was lost altogether and CTC was reduced to £1460.08.
HOW can earning £164 more than anticipated lose us nearly £700?

They now bring the £2,500 back in. So you lose around £900 in 04-05 compared to 03-04, but the elements are uprated as well, so you gain a bit back. This looks right to me.

May 2004: New amounts confirmed based on same income. £1991.04 CTC and £95.54 WTC. WHAT changed their minds?

This is where it starts to look a bit strange. You shouldn't be getting any WTC on an income of £17K, unless you have some childcare costs or a disability.

June 2004: New amounts again based on same income. £2175.40 CTC and £3073.10 WTC.

Obviously complete nonsense.

July 2004: Same income. New amounts. CTC £1460.08 WTC £0

Back to what I would expect it to be.

Oct 2004: Apparantly i had made a recent change. What it was i dont know but it altered my allowance back up to. CTC £1991.04 and WTC £95.54.

Again, no idea why they would do this. Be prepared to have another overpayment when you return your annual declaration. Hopefully it shouldn't be too bad though given that you say in your subsequent post that they have stopped payments at times during the last year.

irs

building

do you know of anyone who has been backdated for tax credits over 3 months back?

irs101

Awards can only be backdated for a maximum of 3 months.

irs

sarahlouise210

awards are calculated on a daily basis and are backdated for 93 days..it is possible to have an award backdated for longer - an example would be if you have put in a claim for DLA for yourself as a worker or for your child tell the I.R. - they will make a note of it and if the DLA claim takes longer than 93 days and you are successful with your claim they will backdate the additional disability tax credits to the date of the claim - as long as you have told them .

Hillyone

Ask my MP what I think of Child Tax Credits - he had to take up my case with the Paymaster General to get me what I knew I was owed. Long story, but their system simply couldn't deal with the fact that my son had left full time education but was registered with Connexions (for which you get Tax Credit for the first 20 weeks). I finally got a one-off payment, plus compensation for the huge stress I had suffered over many months (just trying to get someone to listen to me!) - WHICH THEY'RE NOW TRYING TO GET BACK FROM ME AS AN OVERPAYMENT. YES, I KNOW I'M SHOUTING. So - thank Heavens - my MP was re-elected and I'm already bothering him for his assistance. Watch this space. All leads me to wonder how many people with children in Connexions haven't even pursued the fact that their Credits suddenly stopped - or died of exhaustion and frustration in trying!!

irs101

Sarahlouise

Nothing to do with the OP, just a really techie question.

I've been wondering what you said about awards being backdated 93 days. I'd always been told that it was 3 months and just come across what seems to be the relevant legislation here (see para 7) which says 3 months.

What makes you say 93 days? It seems far too precise to be incorrect, so just wondering how you came across the information. Are HMRC just interpreting the legislation generously in practice (probably by the convenience of the IT system)? Or is there an amendment to the legislation somewhere?

Yours nerdily

irs