Tax credits owe us 8 months now

mpg

Hiys folks

My partner and I put in a claim for child tax credits over 5 months ago now
I`m self employed and will make a loss and my partner only works 18 hrs a week i have a 13 yr old boy who lives with us.

lets go back in time about 3 months ago.
We phoned tax credits and were told its in the automatic phase and will be sorted soon. so we leave it a couple of weeks and phone back only to be given the same story so then leave it a few days same story again this carries on for a month or so of phone calls every couple of days.
Then we are told there is no automatic phase and its stuck in a bottleneck and it will be sorted soon. still phonecalls twice aweek to chase.
Then we get told that its now being moved to the escalation team and if we havn`t rec payment in 20 days ring back so 20 days comes and goes then we get told 20 working days so we wait a few more days.

OK up to date

phoned them friday to be told that there is still nothing wrong with our claim everything should be ok. cant see why there is a hold up but he can`t do anything as there is now no space to put any new notes on the system and he cannot delete any old notes. !!!!!!.

I dont know what else to do our award is about £125 p/w we are starting to get into debt because its taking so long Council tax has been to court and got a judgment for payment they know of our situation.

any help greatly appreciated
Matt

duchy

I was in a similar situation a couple of years ago and I discovered that if you claim it is causing hardship <DUH> you can go to your local tax office for an emergency interim payment.....so I did-every two weeks....until the tax office got sick of it and stuck a rocket up the TC office's bum-and it was done within a week. Coincidence-I don't think so.
The other approach you could try is to go via your MP as govt departments hate this as they have to sort it out within very short time frames with no excuses-but it works.
Good luck !!

System

Go to your local HMRC Enquiry centre asap you have waited far too long for them to sort it out. You will have to make an appointment and you can ask them to look at the claim. They can also give you a hardship payment if you fulfil the criteria.

It could be that your award is stalled and they will have to refer it for "Clerical maintenance" whilst TCO try to sort it out. That means that the clerical team would manually issue payments to you rather than the norm of the computer system automatically issuing the payments. This would also avoid you having to traipse down to the Enquiry Centre every couple of weeks for a payment.


Regarding what they said about the notes - When a claim has successfully gone through the contact centre can put a detailed note on the system every time you call. However when a claim is sitting as "Awaiting Award" (which it would appear yours is) there is only a small box for them to put notes in. This rapidly fills up and so they are eventually unable to add any additional information. Useless I know but that's the way the vastly expensive computer system works.


HTH

clairec79

I had a problem last year where they said it was going to take up to 3 months to sort it out. I kicked up a fuss, told them that I needed an interim payment (assured the person at the end of the phone that it was possible if she put me through to the manager). (My case my have been different in that it was completely their fault)

Payment was sorted within 24 hours - manager never rang me back, but when I rang back and spoketo a nice person, he couldn't give me an interim payment because the backdated pay had been sent out through BACS and would be in my bank within 48 hours.

mpg

I have sent emails to both my MP and the councilor. and will go to the local hmrc tomorrow after giving them another phone call asking to speak to a manager to either properly complain or asking for an interim payment

destiny_star2006

Although ure facing a hard time i wouldnt wurry because taxcredits always pay back wots due i waited3 month for payments to be sorted as because i sorted out living with the money i was living on and not what i should be getting i actually had a lump sum to do up the house

mpg

destiny_star2006 wrote: »

Although ure facing a hard time i wouldnt wurry because taxcredits always pay back wots due i waited3 month for payments to be sorted as because i sorted out living with the money i was living on and not what i should be getting i actually had a lump sum to do up the house

I do agree with you however we are looking at about £4000 so far i`m behind with council tax (thats now been to court) At the moment i`m more worse off than when i wasn`t working.

I`ve never really been a big shouter until it gets really silly maybe i should have started complaining much sooner If i only had to wait 3 months i would have been paid out over 2 months ago.

destiny_star2006

well hopefully you will get that much and get ontop of things and have a bit extra to treat yourself for the horrible months youve been having

mpg

:beer: heres hoping

hmf_2

mpg wrote: »

Hiys folks

My partner and I put in a claim for child tax credits over 5 months ago now
I`m self employed and will make a loss and my partner only works 18 hrs a week i have a 13 yr old boy who lives with us.

lets go back in time about 3 months ago.
We phoned tax credits and were told its in the automatic phase and will be sorted soon. so we leave it a couple of weeks and phone back only to be given the same story so then leave it a few days same story again this carries on for a month or so of phone calls every couple of days.
Then we are told there is no automatic phase and its stuck in a bottleneck and it will be sorted soon. still phonecalls twice aweek to chase.
Then we get told that its now being moved to the escalation team and if we havn`t rec payment in 20 days ring back so 20 days comes and goes then we get told 20 working days so we wait a few more days.

OK up to date

phoned them friday to be told that there is still nothing wrong with our claim everything should be ok. cant see why there is a hold up but he can`t do anything as there is now no space to put any new notes on the system and he cannot delete any old notes. !!!!!!.

I dont know what else to do our award is about £125 p/w we are starting to get into debt because its taking so long Council tax has been to court and got a judgment for payment they know of our situation.

any help greatly appreciated
Matt

Hi

We had the same problem. I send numerous letters of complaint that we were entilted to receive tax credits and kept on receiving the same computer generated letter that doesn't help anyone and is so frustrating, so I then sent them the same complaint letter (saving me the time and effort to keep writing different letters) over and over again until it must have annoyed someone and they then wrote me a proper letter in responce to my complaint giving me a contact name to speak to about my case.

We then finally made some progress after speaking to a human being.
I hope this helps as remember how stressed I was when I was clearly not getting anywhere using there system.

Marie

mpg

UPDATE:
Yesterday we recieved copies of a letter and a fax sent from our MP to council tax (asking for a little leeway) and to tax credits asking them to sort it out immediatly. phoned them today no change as yet will give it a couple of days but have made a formal complaint