Working Tax Credit - confused about overpayment!

sparky0138

I'm very unfamiliar with the way benefits work and I was wondering if anyone might be able to explain why my mum has to pay back all the working tax credit she was given in the last tax year please.

She first qualified and applied in 2018 and was given £1133.07 for 07/09/18-05/04/19

She informed HMRC of her expected income for 2019-2020 (this turned out to be overestimated by about £500) and was given £1040.90

She left her job on 19/04/20 and informed them the next day. She's now received two letters, one saying she needs to pay back the April 2020 payment of £69.08 which is understandable but she's also got a letter saying she needs to pay back all of the £1040.90 for 2019-2020

Can someone please explain why this is or has there been a mistake?

JessicaF_2

When she first applied in 2018 - was it after April? (assume it was). If it was then they would have asked for her 2017-18 income. They then would have asked her in April 19 to confirm her actual 18-19 income. What would would be helpful is if you can confirm her income for those 3 years 17/18, 18/19 and 19/20. 
Leaving her job on 19/4 shouldn't lead to her having to pay back all of 19/20 - so it is either a mistake (perhaps they ended her employment in 19 instead of 2020 or it is linked to her income changes but to confirm that we would need to know the 3 years above. 

sparky0138

Thanks. Yes, she applied after April 2018. Her income was as follows:
17/18 - £5914
18/19 - £8666
19/20 - £9898

JessicaF_2

sparky0138 said:

Thanks. Yes, she applied after April 2018. Her income was as follows:
17/18 - £5914
18/19 - £8666
19/20 - £9898

Without knowing her full circumstances it is hard to say, you will need to check the award notices and then speak to HMRC. However, from those income figures, i would expect to see a fall in tax credits between 18/19 and 19/20 whereas your original post suggests only a small decrease. 

sparky0138

She phoned them this morning and the lady said there would be an overpayment if my mum had given them an under-estimate of earnings but she actually gave them a slight over-estimate so it doesn't make sense. She can fill a complaints form in online but it won't let her continue and submit it unless she's had a final award statement for that year, which she hasn't yet, so maybe it will change things when she gets that.

I love how the dispute page seems to take great delight in saying fewer than 1 in 10 tax credit disputes are successful. 

JessicaF_2

sparky0138 said:

She phoned them this morning and the lady said there would be an overpayment if my mum had given them an under-estimate of earnings but she actually gave them a slight over-estimate so it doesn't make sense. She can fill a complaints form in online but it won't let her continue and submit it unless she's had a final award statement for that year, which she hasn't yet, so maybe it will change things when she gets that.

I love how the dispute page seems to take great delight in saying fewer than 1 in 10 tax credit disputes are successful. 

You will need to wait for the paperwork in that case. As I said, there should have been a much larger drop in tax credits between 2018/19 and 2019/20 based on those income figures - perhaps they didn't record the estimated income she gave previously. 

sparky0138

I wonder if the staff at HRMC have to go on a training course (How To Be As Inept As Possible) before they start or whether it's a requirement of the job. My mum still doesn't have a conclusion to this.

She filled in the online dispute form on 14th May which said it would take 45 working days. It's now been 61 working days and the form was showing as processed about 3 weeks ago but as she still hasn't received a letter, she spoke to them on webchat.

The lady said she checked several systems but was unable to find any notes or letters with an update. So God knows why the form was marked as processed. She's going to phone them on Monday to see if she can find anything out. I'm not holding my breath.

What worries her is that she only had 3 months to dispute and then 30 days after receiving the decision letter to appeal if it doesn't go her way. The 3 months have now passed and there's no letter on the horizon. In the meantime, she's paid the "overpayment" back to avoid the debt collectors knocking.

sparky0138

JessicaF_2 said:

You will need to wait for the paperwork in that case. As I said, there should have been a much larger drop in tax credits between 2018/19 and 2019/20 based on those income figures - perhaps they didn't record the estimated income she gave previously. 

Sorry I didn't comment on this previously. Don't forget that her first payment was only for September to April. Had it been a full year, it would have been a lot more than she got for 2019-2020 and therefore a bigger drop.

spanishtiger

8 August at 10:43AM

I wonder if the staff at HRMC have to go on a training course (How To Be As Inept As Possible) before they start or whether it's a requirement of the job. My mum still doesn't have a conclusion to this.

Sparky, it isn’t very wise to insult the best people who could help you with your query. I hope you realise that employees of HMRC are not responsible for creating their policies, but of merely applying the laws invented by others. You might want to consider that next time you ask for advice on a forum where many contributions of help are made by employees of HMRC.

sparky0138

spanishtiger said:

Sparky, it isn’t very wise to insult the best people who could help you with your query. I hope you realise that employees of HMRC are not responsible for creating their policies, but of merely applying the laws invented by others. You might want to consider that next time you ask for advice on a forum where many contributions of help are made by employees of HMRC.

I wasn't criticising their policies or the fact they apply the rules (if there's a genuine reason for the overpayment, then fine). It's the 61 working days and the fact the lady couldn't find any updates after all that time that I have a problem with. Surely you must agree that even with all that's going on, 3 months is a long time for them to then turn around and basically say they have no idea what's going on.

Luckily she phoned them this morning and was able to talk to someone who managed to find out that when the form was processed, it was supposed to go into the system for the matter to be fixed but never was. A specialised team are now going to work on it. From what I can gather, the wrong date was put as her leaving date so we're hopeful she'll get a refund of what she's paid back but until she gets a letter, we just don't know for sure.

I'd just like to add that both times she contacted HMRC, my mum was nothing but polite to the people she spoke to.

sparky0138

Another 8 weeks have now passed and still she hasn't heard anything so she phoned them again this morning. Not sure what happened to the specialist team because the guy on the phone seemed to do everything there and then. Now it turns out the overpayment was due to her not completing a renewal form. As she didn't receive one and left her job in early April, she had no idea she had to fill one in. The man on the phone was very helpful but didn't seem very impressed that she hadn't filled a form in, until he saw on the system that she was telling the truth and hadn't been issued with one for some reason.

So now they're going to send her one out and hopefully once that's been filled in, everything will get resolved.

I don't understand though, why they said there was an overpayment back in May when she had until the end of July to fill in the renewal form.

ETA: Just found this about an error with this year's renewal notices, although it's more to do with the information on them rather than them not being sent at all. However, maybe that had something to do with it...?