Tax Credit Dispute

flakey_2

Good afternoon

I have received an overpayment of £4k from tax credits and i wish to dispute it. The reason i want to dispute it is because i gave the correct figures etc to the tax credit office via the phone and they have completely ignored the fact that i told them i receive childcare vouchers. I know i told them, 100%, but i need to write to them with my dispute.

Ive seen on a thread that there is a handy guide for disputing overpayments but i cant seem to locate it, can anyone help please?

Also does anyone have any good advice/guidance on how best to attack this for a positive outcome.

thanks in advance

R
x

flakey_2

Hi, thanks for your reply.

Its for the 2014/15 year.

Regards

R

flakey_2

super.

when you provide a weekly childcare cost you have to deduct the amount of any childcare vouchers you use (salary sacrifice scheme), which i understand, and i advised the advisor of.

Unfortunately she did the calculation but didnt deduct the childcare vouchers amount, even though i 100% told her about them. so my childcare costs then show higher, so thats how ive been overpaid. (hope i described this clearly enough)

Regards

R

flakey_2

Yes i received an award letter but because my childcare costs vary so wildly from one month to the next i couldn't do the calculation, so even though i read the award letter, i wouldnt have been able to spot an error because i couldnt do the calculation in the first place.

I understand that they will push the fact that i should have picked this up on the award letter but surely they are partly to blame on the basis that they did the calculation wrong with the correct info??

Reagrds

R

CIS

I had a error about 7-8 years caused by them calculating the figure wrongly (about £150 or so) - the logic they used was that it was a recoverable error if I could have been expected to be aware of it and that by spotting the error and notifying them I was aware of the error and therefore...

The error was that small in the overall figure that I didn't see it straight away.

Icequeen99

flakey wrote: »

Yes i received an award letter but because my childcare costs vary so wildly from one month to the next i couldn't do the calculation, so even though i read the award letter, i wouldnt have been able to spot an error because i couldnt do the calculation in the first place.

I understand that they will push the fact that i should have picked this up on the award letter but surely they are partly to blame on the basis that they did the calculation wrong with the correct info??

Reagrds

R

How exactly did you give your childcare figures on the phone?

How many months worth did she ask you for and did the operator work the average out for you?

I agree with BB - will be difficult to dispute as the onus is on you to check. However, i would say that if you called specifically to get help with the averaging, and they asked you questions, you provided accurate figures and told them about vouchers and then they calculated the average, then all you could check was whether your award notice was the same as the average calculated.

I would request a copy of the phone call and go from there, it very much depends on what was said. If the dispute fails, use the complaints process and eventually go to the adjudicator (if the phone call supports it as I mentioned above)

IQ

skateykatey

The bad news is; As others have mentioned the onus was on you to check your award notice and then report any errors. However, the good news is that child care costs are notoriously really difficult to check on the award notice so the burden isn't so high.

If it was a case if your income being recorded incorrectly I would say you had no chance but with childcare costs I would say that you definately have a chance.

Make sure you dispute the overpayment within 3 months of your award notice and I would also ask for a subject access request in relation to your telephone calls; they will just send you a disc with them all on so you'll have to trawl through them to find the correct call but at least you'll have it.

Prepare for your dispute to be knocked back initially but then send in a complaint, still prepare to be knocked back but then send in a secon complaint and probably then go to the adjudicator. The Adjudicator will not look at your complaint until you have been through the tax credits complaint system on at least 2 occasions (a dispute if not classed as a complaint)

Because it's not an appeal they will not hold off recovery action indefinately.

Good luck.