Tax Credits question

kirstle99

Hi all

I have had a bit of a nightmare getting my childcare costs updated with tax credits. Anyway, about 3 weeks ago my payment changed and I checked it using the entitled to website and it looks correct. However my amended award notice was wrong for the childcare details.

I phoned up last night and was assured that they do indeed have the correct amount for childcare, but that an award notice hasn't been generated because it has been amended internally? Does this sound right? The man on the phone was very nice and told me this does happen if people have had a few changes in a short space of time (which I did). I think he called it a 'discretionary amendment' or something like that?

Shall I take their word for it or call again? Can anyone put my mind at rest?

kirstle99

There were quite a few changes. I have 2 children, aged 8 and 4. These are the changes in date order;

In august my youngest left nursery. So my childcare costs dropped from £147.10 per week to £17.45 (just for the eldest).

In september youngest started school and with the childminder like my eldest. So childcare increased to £81 per week for both children.

Tax credits have said that I got a 4 week run-on after nursery care ended, but it's taken them ages to update to the correct amount after 2 lots of mistakes on my award.

The tax credits helpline man seemed to think that it was due to these mistakes it had been processed internally?

kirstle99

Thank you for the reply.

Yeah i've never had that before, basically he explained that they way it was processed the last time by the staff meant it wouldn't have generated an award update letter.

But he did go through all of the information they had and it was all correct and up to date (finally!) so do you think that means I don't need to worry?

kirstle99

Honestly! It did sound a bit strange to me too. I think i'll phone them and ask for an amended award to be generated for my records. They surely can't refuse?

kirstle99

When I phoned up at the end of September, they had updated my childcare costs to a really strange amount £17.80 per week, which I hadn't told them in my letter. I went through everything with the lady then, and she said 'ok let's start from scratch, give me all the details as they are now and I will update the system properly'.

We did all that and I was given the lead time of 4 weeks for it all to be updated. She told me at the time that there had been some major errors with their computer system, she didn't know if it was human or computer making the mistakes but it was causing a lot of bother.

She told me she had entered it all manually on the system and it was now showing with what was correct.

So then 3 weeks later my payments went down. I expected this, and double-checked the amount on the entitled to website and it was correct.

The only reason I called was because I hadn't had an amended award notice to reflect the new lower payments and childcare costs. The man just said it was something to do with the way the earlier call handler had entered it on the system. Maybe it was a faster way of doing it?