Help please. Know nothing about Tax Credits

POPPYOSCAR

Can someone help please.

My neighbour was SE and on Tax Credits.

It has taken her several months to get her award sorted out as it was continually wrong.

She came into me this morning with her adjusted award and she does not understand it.

Part 3 Payments
Working Tax Credits £1986.13

Minus
Payments already made £2169.44
Amount of overpayment from earlier years already collected from payments £105.37
PLUS
Amount you have paid back for this award £150.00

Amount due from you £138.68.

I know there is probably a simple answer but she tells me trying to get through to them is a nightmare.

If the overpayment from earlier years of £105.37 has already been collected from payments why is it added back on?

Icequeen99

Is this an award for 2018/19?

The reason it works like this is because when they recover an overpayment from a previous year, it is classed as a 'payment' in the current year and so can effectively increase any overpayment in the current year.

So what they are saying is your friend has been 'paid' - 2274.81 (made up of actual physical payments of 2169.44 + 105.37 to recover an earlier overpayment).

This is against an entitlement of 1986.13 and so there is an overpayment of 288.68. However, £150.00 has been paid against that (i assume collected from 19/20 payments but that is just a guess) which leaves the 138.68 left to pay.

IQ

POPPYOSCAR

Icequeen99 wrote: »

Is this an award for 2018/19?

The reason it works like this is because when they recover an overpayment from a previous year, it is classed as a 'payment' in the current year and so can effectively increase any overpayment in the current year.

So what they are saying is your friend has been 'paid' - 2274.81 (made up of actual physical payments of 2169.44 + 105.37 to recover an earlier overpayment).

This is against an entitlement of 1986.13 and so there is an overpayment of 288.68. However, £150.00 has been paid against that (i assume collected from 19/20 payments but that is just a guess) which leaves the 138.68 left to pay.

IQ

Thank you the award is correct then.

This award goes back to 2017 when she stopped being SE.

She has been paying back by DD as she was advised that most of the over payment was because they continued to pay her even though she advised them she had stopped being SE

They have acknowledged they have not handled it correctly and are giving her £30 compensation.

I think she finds it difficult now to trust them!

calcotti

Icequeen99 wrote: »

The reason it works like this is because when they recover an overpayment from a previous year, it is classed as a 'payment' in the current year and so can effectively increase any overpayment in the current year.

I can see why that would be confusing!

POPPYOSCAR

calcotti wrote: »

I can see why that would be confusing!

I know!

From what I have seen nothing about Tax Credits is straightforward and even the people who work there do not seem to know what they are doing half the time.

Why do they have to make these things so complicated for people!

Icequeen99

calcotti wrote: »

I can see why that would be confusing!

definitely, i would say it is one of they most confusing things about tax credits (and there are many things that could claim that title) - it makes the award notices impossible to understand. It really isn't a surprise when people stop getting tax credits and get landed with a bill that they say they didn't know about. In 99.8% of cases, they will have been told about it somewhere on the notice, but they probably didn't understand it.

IQ