Tax Credit Overpayment

RH12345

Hi,

HMRC have contacted me via letter asking for a repayment of £2302 relating to tax credits overpayment in 2012, 2013 and 2014. I have no idea if I did receive an overpayment, can they really try and get me to pay back something that is almost 10 years ago?

I have requested all the information relating to this but it hasn't really helped me understand how they have concluded I suddenly owe this money 10 years on.

Any help appreciated.

Icequeen1

yes they can. Tax credit overpayments are notified on award notices - so it would have been on the award notices for those years. They are lengthy and can be difficulty to decipher though, so often people didn't realise especially if recovery was taken from ongoing payments. 

Tax credit debts are statute barred but that only applies to them taking court action. They can use other methods of recovery - for example, they can pass the debt to DWP who can do an attachment of earnings order via your employer. 

You will be out of time to challenge now and i've never seen or heard of a case where HMRC failed to notify of an overpayment as required by the legislation because it was automated on the system.