HMRC giving incorrect payment information to DWP, affected UC award

JonVarnas

NedS said:

poppy12345 said:

JonVarnas said:

the employer never bothered to respond

I don't understand why you're still blaming DWP when it's clearly the employers fault here.

The fact that this has impacted the OP is unfortunate, but is certainly not the fault of DWP. If you feel the process could be improved, feel free to contact your MP with detailed proposals.

What would be the point, it'd just be ignored anyways...that's the whole problem!

tomtom256

JonVarnas said:

What would be the point, it'd just be ignored anyways...that's the whole problem!

Well if it's not raised, how do you expect any changes to the current process to take place.

JKS$(

@JonVarnas - think my son's housemate is in a similar'ish position to you, & has been for several months. 

His UC has been underpaid because his previous employer is still telling HMRC that they are paying him, when he actually left last October & had his last salary paid in November.

He can prove that he isn't getting paid by uploading his bank statements to UC, but UC keep saying they're 'looking into it' & each month he doesn't get the UC he is actually entitled to (as he's not working anywhere) he gets further & further into debt. The upaid council tax bill that you mention in a previous post will be increased by a court fee & a summons fee of £100...

He's asked for copies of his payslips from his previous employer, who ignore him. (Hoping he's learnt the lesson of downloading payslips ASAP!)

I've suggested he opens an online account with HMRC to see what information is there. 

He's tried speaking t HMRC & UC - assuming he's got a well charged phone, several hours to spare & is ever lucky enough to get through to an actual person, they never seem to know what's going on or what to suggest to get this sorted out.

Thanks to those who have explained the behind the scenes working of who must do what with HMRC & UC. 

How detailed is the RTI that HMRC pass to UC? Assuming it contains amounts & dates of payments, but does it include details of the bank account that the employer claims to be making salary payments into? Wondering how he can prove that he isn't being paid into a different bank account from the one he's uplaoding statements to UC? 

How common are problems like this? 

ElwoodBlues

RTI definitely won't include bank account details, think it's just amount and pay date that gets transferred to UC system.
He can't prove anything unfortunately, it needs HMRC (or more ideally his ex employer) to correct the info. Although I'm not even sure that the employer can amend an RTI submission from a previous month. The usual way to correct for a previous mistake is to amend the year to date figures in the next submission. But that only resolves from a tax perspective, I don't see how it can correct the individual pay period details that HMRC have shared with dwp system.

So I expect the only real way to fix is for the employer to contact HMRC and explain their error, and for HMRC to manually amend/remove the pay entries. Neither of them will probably won't want to do that though - employer won't want to admit to submitting incorrect info, and HMRC might not appreciate the knock on effect to UC of incorrect info. Because HMRC uses the YTD for tax.

JKS$(

Thanks @ElwoodBlues for the information, even if it makes for depressing reading. 

I can understand why the previous employer may not want to tell HMRC that they’ve been supplying incorrect data for 5 months, but surely payroll mistakes happen - guessing we're in the same position as the OP in waiting for ages for HMRC to keep requesting info from the previous employer. In  monetary terms it's a small amount of money each month, so it's hardly going to be a priority for HMRC. But the consequences for my friend are huge - he'll be in rent arrears this month & is wishing he'd never bothered trying to work & improve his situation.

Not sure 'the system' is supposed to work like this.

  

JonVarnas

JKS$( said:

...The upaid council tax bill that you mention in a previous post will be increased by a court fee & a summons fee of £100...

...How common are problems like this? 

I suppose I can consider myself grateful that my council only charge £75 for a summons . Still though, that's £200 dumped on me through no fault of my own. The DWP are still trundling on without a care, no responses to complaints, queries, total communication silence. If you read on other forums where people deal with the DWP as part of their job it seems to the DWP default tactic. As I said, they are a law unto themselves.

JonVarnas

Well I should take back what I've being saying about the DWP because a decision maker rang me this afternoon to get my side of the story and...SUCCESS! They've changed the decision and will pay me the money I should have received.

Two and half weeks is actually a very good turnaround time for a Mandatory Reconsideration, though I wonder if it's because I've been constantly on their case belly aching for the past two weeks and the DM did say that the case had been escalated to her   

Well, that's one thing out of the way. Now to deal with the council...

JKS$(

JonVarnas said:

Well I should take back what I've being saying about the DWP because a decision maker rang me this afternoon to get my side of the story and...SUCCESS! They've changed the decision and will pay me the money I should have received.

Two and half weeks is actually a very good turnaround time for a Mandatory Reconsideration, though I wonder if it's because I've been constantly on their case belly aching for the past two weeks and the DM did say that the case had been escalated to her   

Well, that's one thing out of the way. Now to deal with the council...

That's really good news - the 'system' has wprked how it should & you've received the benefit payment you're entitled to. Hopefully the same resolution will happen for my friend. 

I'm (sadly) a frequent user of DWP as a disabled person, so it is great to get good news!

JonVarnas

JKS$( said:

JonVarnas said:

Well I should take back what I've being saying about the DWP because a decision maker rang me this afternoon to get my side of the story and...SUCCESS! They've changed the decision and will pay me the money I should have received.

Two and half weeks is actually a very good turnaround time for a Mandatory Reconsideration, though I wonder if it's because I've been constantly on their case belly aching for the past two weeks and the DM did say that the case had been escalated to her   

Well, that's one thing out of the way. Now to deal with the council...

That's really good news - the 'system' has wprked how it should & you've received the benefit payment you're entitled to. Hopefully the same resolution will happen for my friend. 

I'm (sadly) a frequent user of DWP as a disabled person, so it is great to get good news!

Good luck to your friend. They just have to keep on to the DWP every day and hopefully it will get resolved. The communication from the DWP, or lack of, is simply woeful. I was fortunate this time, but you're mainly just left limbo for god knows how long unless you really push them. I gave them a ring this morning to chase up when I'll get my underpayment and the answer was basically "there's no timescale...maybe you'll get it in you next payment?". That's not really good enough tbh. And at the end of the call the fella says "if you have any queries you can leave a message on your journal". Well the reason I ring you up every day is because YOU DON'T RESPOND TO MESSAGES ON THE SODDIN' JOURNAL!!

kaMelo

They are wiping up someone else's mess, have done so pretty quickly yet still you attack them whilst not having a bad word to say about those who caused all of this.

Like I said, I guess they're an easy target.