Disputing Child Tax Credit Overpayment

moonlady

Hi

I have received a notice to pay from hmrc regarding child tax credit overpayment.

I feel I need to dispute this but I wanted to check on here that I have my dates correct.

Sons last exam was 8th June 2018, results in August 2018. We weren't sure if he was going to university or not when he had his last exam.

I phoned HMRC early September to let them know he had finished in education. They assured me there would be no overpayments. I was actually quite worried about overpayments when I rang and they were very reassuring.

Roll on to today when I received a notice to pay.

I doubled checked my bank statements and my child tax payments stopped on the 5th June.

I phoned HMRC and they are still saying they haven't made a mistake and there has been an overpayemnt.

I checked the COP26 document (what happens if we've paid you too much tax credit) and the document states that I needed to inform them of any changes within one month of knowing about them (which I did), that they need to give me the correct advice when I speak to them (they didn't when they told me there would be no overpayments), that they should send me an award notice within 30 days acknowledging the changes (they didn't).

I feel they have completely failed in their responsibilities and the payments shouldn't have stopped until the end of the summer when my son decided not to stay on in education.

Can anyone tell me if I have a leg to stand on here?

The notice to pay is written in a very threatening manner and when I am surviving on benefits due to disability myself I will struggle to pay what they are asking in the one month they have given me.

calcotti

moonlady wrote: »

I doubled checked my bank statements and my child tax payments stopped on the 5th June.

To be clear, does this refer to 2018?
You would have been entitled to receive CTC until the last day of his course which would probably be taken as the date of his last exam.

Nonetheless your entitlement has to be calculated based on your actual income. If you have no teen provided with one you need to request a calculation showing how they have decided that an overpayment has occurred and you need to check the calculation to see if you can identify any errors.

If there is an overpayment you should be able to agree a repayment schedule over a longer period of time but their default position, understandably, is to request immediate payment.

Icequeen99

OP - if you think it should have been paid to 31st August then the COP 26 is not relevant to you and neither are the responsibilities you list. They are for cases where the overpayment is correct but you don't think you should have to pay it back.

You are saying there shouldn't be an overpayment - and that means you need to use the appeal route. However, if this is a 2018/19 decision you will need to find the 2018/19 final notice. you have probably missed the 30 day time limit for appealing and so you would need to file a late appeal.

Really it comes down to what his intentions were. if he intended to go to Uni when he sat the exams then it would continue to be payable until the date he decided not to. See the example in the HMRC guidance manual here https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/tax-credits-technical-manual/tctm02230

IQ

calcotti

I missed that. Having looked at the link provided by icequeen, if your son originally intended to go to university and then decided not to then you appear to be entitled to CTC until 31st August 2018. If however he simply hadn’t decided what to do then entitlement ended on 8th June 2018.