Tax Credits overpayment - their mistake - please help!

pickledkate

In 2012 I was sent a few letters from Tax Credits stating that I'd had an overpayment of approx £7000 the previous year. I then received other letters but the amounts changed, like they were making it all up? Which it seems they were First £5000 before finally sticking with around an £8000 overpayment.

This wasn't true and I disputed it and sent bank statements proving that I hadn't had £8000 in tax credits paid to me in that year. They insisted that I had. When I disputed it further to ask how they believed this to be true they said they paid twice the amount of child care element instead of one. Again I disputed it as the child care element was paid to me to pass onto the childcare provider (from what I remember) and was only one payment not duplicated. They then said it was paid directly to the child care provider even though the child care provider denied this and Tax Credits couldn't provide me with proof of this.

Fast fowards to now and I'm still paying this off even though my ex partner was also paying it until he got his half added to an IVA. I'm still paying for that half too because well tax credits seem to think his payments plus the IVA are irrelevant so where did his payments ever go?

I remember at the time alot of people were going through the same thing.

I'm now paying £50 a month to clear this debt and not once have I had proof of the debt, how much I owe now. Nothing but threats and detachment of earnings.

Has anyone had any experience with this or has any advice on how to deal with this? I've lost count how many times I've rang them and written to them asking questions or for a clear picture of what is going on but I get fobbed off every time. Would it be possible to prove that I didn't owe this money by now? Is it too late? Would instructing a solicitor help? I'm so tired of paying this confusing debt and as it's taken out of my universal credits I have no say in paying it or not.

Thank you

KxMx

Try contacting your MP, they may be able to help. 

tacpot12

A formal letter of complaint to HMRC would help. You need to set out your complaints to HMRC and to your MP  clearly: 

1. No adequate account of what happened to the payments made by you partner towards the debt has been provided. 
2. No proof that the tax credits were paid to the  Child Care provider and the Child Care provider has confirmed that the payments were not made.  

I don't see why you shouldn't be able to continue to argue about this (HMRC have no time limit to come after you for overpyaments, so I don't see why this shouldn't work in reverse), but why has it taken so long? If you had compained to HMRC and your MP in 2012, this might have got sorted then. Leaving it this long makes it less likely that you can find any extra evidence that might be needed. 

Have a look here for the details of how to complain and how to take your complaint further: Making a complaint « How to deal with HMRC « Guidance « Tax Credits (revenuebenefits.org.uk)

You need to explain why you weren't able to deal with this in 2012 or the intervening period. 

I don't expect your partner paid very much off the  debt. If they were paying £20 a month and had an IVA after two years, they would have only paid off £480, leaving £7,520 for you to pay, and you are only paying it off at £600 a year so it can't be far of being paid off.

You have a right to an account of how the amout owed was arrived at, and how your payments have reduced the amount owed. Keep complaining until you get this. If the £50 per month payment level is relatively new then you will be still some way of having repaid it, but you owe the debt and must pay until HMRC accept that you don't. I agree this is unfair and you should continue to argue this, but at some point you may need to accept that they are right and you are wrong (for a reason that you don't understand or accept). One way to stop getting confused and tired about it, is just to accept that you owe it. It's your choice.

You need to assemble all your evidence, and you might make a Subject Access Request to HMRC for all the data they hold on you in relation to Tax Credits. The link above takes you through the complaints process that ends might end with a Judicial Review of your case, but you will need a solicitor to review your evidence to see if you have any sort of a case. You might need to pay them to review the evidence, and I suspect you can't afford to do so. If you get as far as the Parliamentary Ombudsman, you might start to look into whether there is any funding available to pay for this. It's too early yet to worry about it. You have at least four stages of complaint to go through. 

spanishtiger

There’s a 3 month time limit for disputing an overpayment, and a 5 year time limit for official error to be considered. You can ask for an explanation of the overpayment, but I’m afraid you will need to pay it back. 

Alice_Holt

Try raising official error and copying the correspondence to your MP:
https://revenuebenefits.org.uk/tax-credits/guidance/how-to-deal-with-hmrc/challenging-overpayments/

Also request a SAR:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hmrc-subject-access-request

peteuk

spanishtiger said:

There’s a 3 month time limit for disputing an overpayment, and a 5 year time limit for official error to be considered. You can ask for an explanation of the overpayment, but I’m afraid you will need to pay it back. 

Was going to mention the time limits, however...  find the points at which they did pay you and the amounts and marry it to what they thought they paid you.  You may still be able to dispute the debt isn't yours eg it doesn't exists. I stress may...

Equally if you still have the end of year calculations, did you claim for the following year?  Did they start taking back an amount from the next years payments?  The reason why is if they said they paid double the amount, at the end of the year it would have been noticed when you declarer your actual income (remember Tax Credits is paid on an estimated income and the corrected at the end of the financial year).  SO although you say you only received single payments, at the end of the year they may have calculated that they had over paid you and should have only paid half the amount you did receive. 

pickledkate

Sorry yes it was for the previous year