tax credit overpayment and how to deal with it..

Deals_2

there has been a lot of publicity about this tax credit thing being "illegal" (yesterday's daily mail had a piece on it). when they have overpaid even though you have notified them that your situation has changed and you assume that this has all been sorted but then get a huge bill for overpayment at the end of the year what do you suggest doing? thanks

socks_uk

I'm watching this one with interest too.

We've been paying back £220 a month in overpayments since March and it's crippling us.
It all stems back to tax year 2003-2004 when in October I took on a second job because of my husband moving out in September (I took him back in December - we're much happier now ). I informed the Tax Credit Office about every change in our circumstances. We were told we owed £2600! Goodness knows how come You tell them everything and they mess it all up!!
Our family budget was assessed and we were told that they can leave us with £50 'spare' a month. We've paid over half of it back, only 5 months to go but it'd be nice to get it all back again.

My daughter is now 19 and going to uni so NO MORE TAX CREDITS!! :T Wish we'd never applied in the first place!

viktory

And another HUGE bill for the poor beleagured tax payer - all thanks to maladministration by the Tax Credit office.

Deals_2

yes i think that tax credits you can get till the kids are 20. are you entitled to EMA for her or is that only for college? (maybe uni is different...sorry if ignorant but knew of someone getting this for college). thanks

socks_uk wrote: »

I'm watching this one with interest too.

We've been paying back £220 a month in overpayments since March and it's crippling us.
It all stems back to tax year 2003-2004 when in October I took on a second job because of my husband moving out in September (I took him back in December - we're much happier now ). I informed the Tax Credit Office about every change in our circumstances. We were told we owed £2600! Goodness knows how come You tell them everything and they mess it all up!!
Our family budget was assessed and we were told that they can leave us with £50 'spare' a month. We've paid over half of it back, only 5 months to go but it'd be nice to get it all back again.

My daughter is now 19 and going to uni so NO MORE TAX CREDITS!! :T Wish we'd never applied in the first place!

Deals_2

situation in order. so after the articles in the different papers yesterday are the tax office going to try and get the money back or not is really the question. could be a waste of money. anyway i dont understand we complain about this but we tax payers dont seem to moan about the huge pays of councils fat cats, the huge pensions that MPs and ex Prime Minister gets on top of all of his book publishing deals. sorry this is not very fair for the people on small pensions to get out of their situation. i think it shoudl be the same for everyone. why doesnt anyone kick up a fuss about this? what about these wealthy foreign investors who dont pay the full stamp duty when they pay london properties or is it any? and how come these people pay less tax or none compared to a cleaner? am i not understanding something?

viktory wrote: »

And another HUGE bill for the poor beleagured tax payer - all thanks to maladministration by the Tax Credit office.

pnq06

Don't get me started with Tax Credits :mad:

Alright then if you insist

I have 'apparently' been overpaid from April 2006-April 2007.

I started a new job in march 2006 and told tax credits straight away as I wanted it declared for the April (new award) even though you have 3 months to tell them about changes in circumstances (I though I was being clever as they messed up 2 years before that!). They told me that the award wouldn't change as our income hadn't changed by £25,000 a year.

Anyway, I phoned up several times over that year because payments were not regular, I'd also moved house and I cut back on my working hours.... I stopped that job in the November and told them straight away and was told (again) it wouldn't matter as our income wasn't changed by £25,000.

However 2 months ago we got a bill for £886.00 asking to be paid in full in 10 days :eek:

I have had to dispute it as it was not my fault- I told them all they needed to know at the right times, it wasn't as if I didn't return the annual form and even though there not supposed to stop payments during disputes they have!!!!

I haven't heard back since... Watch this space!!!

Argghhhhh :mad:

Rant Over

diddlydum

The tax credit is a complete shambles, and most of the clients we deal with have some sort of problem with HMRC ballsing something up. It's what you get when you have tax collectors handing out benefits, the whole tax credit system should be run by the DWP IMHO.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, if the tax credit overpayment was as a result of an HMRC error, and either it wasn't reasonable for you to know that you were being overpaid or that you took reasonable steps to get the overpayments stopped, then the HMRC should not recover the overpayment. You would need to get form TC846 from HMRC's tax credit helpline 0845 300 3900, and you would need to clearly explain why you didn't make the mistake, why they did make the mistake, and what you did about it.

As a general rule phoning them once about a change in circumstances won't be enough to show that it was their fault and you did all you could tp stop it, the HMRC set the rules and usually want you to ring them 2-3 times before they will accept it to be their error.

Generally you'll be best off getting a welfare benefits specialist to fight your case for you, if you can. Most advisors have access to telephone helplines that the public are not allowed to ring, and can usually get you the answer you want much quicker. CLS Direct (funded by Government) is good if you're on a low income (their number is 0845 345 4345), or try your local CAB.

socks_uk

Deals wrote: »

yes i think that tax credits you can get till the kids are 20. are you entitled to EMA for her or is that only for college? (maybe uni is different...sorry if ignorant but knew of someone getting this for college). thanks

We can no longer claim Tax Credits because my daughter's course is beyond A levels. She's now been granted her student loan and enrolls on Monday at Uni.

shabbina

I'm in a similar situation. I was just wondering has anyone ever or could anyone try to take them to court over stuff like this. Especially when we know its not our fault.