help please with regards to working tax/what am i entitled to

ricflairandy

Hi,

My partner has just had her weekly tax credit stopped because the government claim they have been overpaying me.

Having been on the phone to them for hours they refuse to take any blame and somehow its my fault they have over paied us so they have stopped the credits she gets and are stopping mine now.

We have 1 small child, and my partner does not work(shes pregnant). I work in the it industry and earn 27750 a year.

Does anyone know what if anything im entitled to, or she is. Can she claim dole for not working? is there any tax i can claim back? as checking there website says i am entitled to 0 and she is entitled to 9 pound a month. Surly thats not right?

Sorry if my message is a bit rushed but im in a bit of a bad mood at the moment on just finding out this.

Fran

You could have a look at Entitled To calculator. Alternatively you could ask at your local Citizens Advice Bureau - take all income info with you.

Do you know what caused the overpayment? For instance if you had a large increase in income (over £2,500 p.a) which you didn't tell them about?

ricflairandy

Fran wrote:

You could have a look at Entitled To calculator. Alternatively you could ask at your local Citizens Advice Bureau - take all income info with you.

Do you know what caused the overpayment? For instance if you had a large increase in income (over £2,500 p.a) which you didn't tell them about?

The over payment was caused by them claiming that they had me down as having 0 income. Which i dont udnerstand, as surly a tax rebate on 0 would be 0.

And in all forms ive ever recievd ive had my exact earnings on the front.

telly-addict

Presumably this is the child tax credit you have been claiming? I assume as your partner isn't working you haven't been claiming the child care element of the working tax credit as you don't pay any childcare costs? And with an income of nearly £28K I assume you haven't claimed the working tax credit - not sure of the limit for this but I would expect you are earning too much.

Do you have a copy of the original form you completed to claim the child tax credit in the first place? If so, I would check that you haven't made an error completing it. Secondly check the awards notice that you have received from the Inland Revenue - from what you say, they have entered your income as zero, which as you say is incorrect. But you say that the forms you have received have your income correctly stated on them?

For one child the child tax credit you receive is around £548 per year, or £10.55 per week. I would expect you to be entitled to this at your level of income, which makes me think you have been receiving working tax credit in error?

I can only recommend you double check the forms you have completed and the forms received from the IR. It is hard to know whether the error has originated from incorrect info on the form, or incorrect inputting by the IR.

Child tax credit is higher when your income is below a certain level - so if your income has been shown as 0, but now they have amended it to the correct level, they will have paid you too much tax credit and will be wanting it back.

Sorry if this has more questions than answers but going through the paper trail may help to make some sense of this.

If you can provide more info I will try to help further.

ricflairandy

Yeah thanks. In our previous forms we have had the correct income in, so if there is a msitake which it is looking more likley that there is it was on there end. Should i be liable for this? As now my partner is recieving 0 a week instead of the 10 a week she should be getting. I know its only 10 , but evry little helps.

telly-addict

If you have provided the correct information, then you are definitely not liable for a mistake made by the Inland Revenue!

However, if they have paid you money that you are not entitled to, then it does need to be paid back. If it is their mistake, they should allow some leeway in this, especially if it is a significant amount.
From the information you have provided, I would have thought that the child tax credit is still due to your partner. If you are having no joy on the phone with the Tax Credits people, ask to speak to the supervisor and have them review the paper work.

Good luck!

Spendless

Sorry I've got a bit lost. Do you and your partner live together. Your award is on your joint income.

If only your partner worked on an income of £27,000 (can't recall exact figure) she would be entitled to the family element of £545p.a -roughly £10 a week.

If you also work and live in the same household you need to add your income on to your partners £27,000.

If this figure comes to (around ) less than £50,000 you should still be entitled to the family element of £545p.a. If it is over £50,000 the money starts to reduce.

This is assuming that the child claiming for is over 1, and there are no disabilities in the family or childcare costs.

When baby is born you are entitled to an extra £545.p.a for the 1st year of babys life.

ricflairandy

Partner does not work. I work and the wage is mine.

irs101

As others have said, your circumstances mean that you are entitled to £547.50 a year - £10.50 a week. If they have been assuming that you have no income, you must have been receiving something like £80 or more a week. Is that right?

I think HMRC will argue that you could reasonably have known that you were receiving the wrong amount - after all all there literature indicates family element only for someone in your sort of circumstances. Therefore they are extremely unlikely to write off the overpayment. BUT because this is an overpayment due to your income, rather than their being a mistake over your eligbility, you should be able to come to a solution where they don't ask for all the money back at once. They should just stop your TCs until you've paid it back - which could take a number of years in your circumstances.

Have a look at the code of practice on overpayments

irs

System

"The over payment was caused by them claiming that they had me down as having 0 income. Which i dont udnerstand, as surly a tax rebate on 0 would be 0.

And in all forms ive ever recievd ive had my exact earnings on the front"

I don't understand what you mean about the tax rebate.

If you received one it would have come from the tax office which deals with you as a PAYE or SA taxpayer. Unfortunately the information they have or receive does not get through to the Tax Credit Office which is a completely separate department within the Inland Revenue and the staff who work there do not have the same amount of access to your income records that's why you have to tell the TCO what your income is or what you estimate it will be for the coming year.

Have you checked page 3 of your TC602 (Award notice) for last year to see what they had down as your income. If they had your correct income on that then somehow changed it to £0.00 then I would show them the notice and ask why they changed your income figure.

sneekymum

I've been trying to give back a massive overpayment for over a year. I've got a whole file on it - I take care to confirm every telephone conversation with them in writing. They simply refuse to be wrong. Meanwhile I've put the lot in an ISA where it's doing nicely...