HMRC giving incorrect payment information to DWP, affected UC award

JonVarnas

Weired and annoying one. I've not been in employment since November and currently on UC. For some reason HMRC have told the DWP that I received £600 from my "employer" and the DWP have duly knocked over £300 off my award leaving me in very dire straits for this month. I've definitely not received this amount in my bank account (I'm brass so I check it regularly) and I've checked my HMRC account and it correctly says that I'm not employment and shows the correct gross amount and tax I've paid for this year. I've left numerous notes on my journal about tjos and trying to get through to HMRC to find out who reported this payment is a nightmare.Is there anything else I can do in this situation? I've been on and off UC for years but this is the first time I've ever had an issue with the RTI system.

calcotti

You need to request an RTI dispute with UC.
See the bottom of this
https://revenuebenefits.org.uk/universal-credit/guidance/entitlement-to-uc/rti-and-universal-credit/

JonVarnas

calcotti said:

You need to request an RTI dispute with UC.
See the bottom of this
https://revenuebenefits.org.uk/universal-credit/guidance/entitlement-to-uc/rti-and-universal-credit/

Thanks. I've left numerous requests on my journal but they tend not to be looked at for about three days so I phoned them instead and they said they'll send it straight to my case manager who should respond by tomorrow, though I shan't hold my breath. What's baffling is that there's nothing on my HMRC account about this amount

calcotti

JonVarnas said:..What's baffling is that there's nothing on my HMRC account about this amount  

I agree, it's odd.

JonVarnas

Well the DWP got back to me and...surprise, surprise they're going to do diddly squat. Well to be fair, the lady said that they'll get someone to contact HMRC who will then contact the employer who provided the information. However, there's no timescale for this and if the employer doesn't bother responding then I have to go through the Mandatory Reconsideration process, which will take months. Bummer.

JonVarnas

Figured out what went wrong but the DWP are sticking to their guns so something that could be sorted out within a day now will take months because of their "processes". My god, the DWP are a big load of crap

huckster

@JonVarnas

So what was the issue you found ?

DWP receive the HMRC data showing, employers, payroll ID  number for employee, date reported, date paid (wages paid date), frequency of payment ( weekly, 4 weekly, monthly), gross pay, income tax, NI, pension.

If you can prove what the issue is and that the earnings considered for the assessment period are incorrect, then the mandatory reconsideration (MR) should not take months.  Just request the MR and explain issues of hardship, asking for the MR to be escalated for a Decision Maker to review ASAP.

JonVarnas

@huckster

It's quite convoluted and difficult to explain, but in essence it seems to be the way my former employer handles the payroll. For the assesment period they've made a third party deduction for overpaid wages that they never actuallly paid (They never overpaid in the first place, and I have written correspondence where they admitted that), which HMRC have reported to the DWP as part of my earnings. As I say, it's quite hard to explain without actually seeing the payslips. I've tried asking the DWP to go to straight to Mandatory Reconsideration but they won't budge until they've done their RTI investigation, which means they write to HMRC, who then writes to the employer and waits for them to reply, and writes back to the DWP with a response. There's no timescale for this so it could be weeks. THEN I can go for Mandatory Reconsideration, which will be another couple of months. Total farce. So in the meantime I'll just have to power-through I suppose, probably incurring debt and fees along the way. God I hate the DWP.

huckster

What the employer has done is not unusual unfortunately. They have added amount to your payroll and then as a third party deduction so the companies account balances, totally ignorant to the problem it would cause to any benefit claim.

If I were in this position, I would be contacting HMRC, if the employers have processed incorrect data, as HMRC have duties under Data Protection Act to ensure any errors are corrected. So no doubt they would contact the employers to request corrections are applied. Might speed up the process, if the employers won't do this unless pushed by HMRC.

JonVarnas

@huckster

Believe me, I've tried contacting HMRC but you just can't get through to them - why can't they get an email contact address instead of having to wait in a queue for yonks? It's really frustrating because it used to be quite simple to rectify problems back in the day but now it seems to be such a chore to get things sorted. I once got sanctioned when I was JSA and I was able to get that overturned in a coupled of weeks: now you have to go through MR's that can take months before they even look at it.

It's also going to have a knock on effect on my council tax reduction because they take their que from what UC reports to them, so they're going to want more money which I can't frankly afford to pay, so a summons is a possibilty with a further £100 added for good measure. Plus it tips me over the threshold for free prescriptions so I can look forward to a bill from the NHS along the line as well, with a £50 fine added as well. The DWP's advice was that I could get an advance - great, more debt. What a mess - last time I take a job at the first instance.

Spoonie_Turtle

Can you get a payslip at all showing the 'payment' and deduction, to show nothing was actually paid to you?  It *might* speed up an MR.  (Might not, but worth a try if getting a payslip for it is possible - evidently they still have your details for payroll.)