tax credit overpayments new report published

Fran

Nicky9,

You should put in a complaint about this as you provided the correct information and it was their mistake. If you need help with this you could contact Citizens Advice.

MissBehaving

Here is our story!

Filled in forms for year ending April 2004. I had only 1 months salary up to this date totalling £750. OH had salary Jan - Apr totalling £7987.
We were led to believe that we would get help with tax credits and filled in the returns for year ending April 2004.
We subsequently received credits for a year 2004-2005 during which time we called Inland Revenue on a couple of occasions to make certain that the credits were correct and give details of our new salaries.
We were told that everything would be fine and our TC were indeed correct and that any changes to our salaries would been to be recorded on our April 2005 year end.
We then received our April 2005 return and filled it in. To then be told that we owed money and our payments then stopped.

We have not received any TC since April 2005 and the amount owed is £9410.
Last year they just said that they would stop paying TC until the overpayment had been paid.

We filled our April 2006 forms in, sent them back, and have just received a Notice to Pay the £9410 back.

Now, this is where our problem lies. We were new to the country and everyone told us not to be silly and get TC and WTC.
When we phoned, we did not take down the persons name that we spoke to. However, what I wondered is, if I went through all my old phone bills, would I be able to pick up the dates then?

We are both aware that we are now above the maximum income for TC & WTC, but our frustration is that we TOLD them!!!!!!!!

They have given us 12 months to pay this back. Which works out to be £784.16 per month!!!! How are we going to find that kind of money???????

If I could turn back time, we would never have applied for TC. I feel violently ill over all of this. We stand to lose our house if they ask us to pay all that money back in such a short space of time.

Do we have the opportunity to tell them how much we can afford to pay back??

Alternatively, does anyone have an idea where to go to get a loan to pay this back?

:sad:

bargain_babe

The tax credit saga is never ending! After reading this thread and getting more angry by the minute I cannot believe how many of us are in the same boat.

I too have given new details as and when anything changed. I also phoned up when the payments seemed different, only to be told they were correct. I kept note of when, and who I spoke to, and assumed the payments must be correct only to be told I was overpaid by £3,500.

They do not realise what stress this causes, I fought and sent an appeal through, waiting over a year for a reply only to be given the same reply as some of you, even though they admitted it was their error, I should have known that they didnt include my husbands income on the claim even though IN BLACK AND WHITE on my form it was listed as included.! (some idiot at the office had not bothered to type it into the computer but how was I to know when all details were correct).

I had that letter saying I could not appeal, but I wrote back, sent copies of award notices showing all wages listed, asking them to reconsider, I also visited the CAB, where the officer was angry and could not believe it, but still to no avail, had another letter last week (took only 9 months to reply, this time!!!) saying no - their decision stood and we would have to pay it back.

I feel like giving in, although not our fault, what more can we do.

Anyway, yesterday received all new notices, saying money had been taken back anyway, by reducing payments, so were they ever considering my appeal! I now owe £500, which makes my head feel a little better, but why make us all feel like this when they could have not sent us letters saying "as you have received this money recently please now pay it back" most of us do not have £3,500 just sitting there, do we? All this and my husband was made redundant last year and we were in bits, never having been in real debt and there we were in a situation made much worse by the IR.

My saga is not yet over, I phoned them yesterday to tell them the 06/07 payments would be too much, as OH now has job and I get a promotion in Sept, so obviously don't want to be overpaid again this year - THEY WONT TAKE NEW DETAILS as we are not getting paid by more than £25,000 more than last year!!! (who would!!!) I checked they didnt mean our wages would come to more than £25,000 between us and he said no.. and get this... he said by everybody phoning to let them know their details have changed was how the problem of overpayments came about in the first place !!! So there you go - its all our fault (surprise, surprise!) I am at a loss!

So this year I will be overpaid by £3,000 or so! and I know about it, and they won't stop payments or do anything about it - God help us!! What is everyone supposed to do? Will we all have to start new savings accounts with the money just so we can pay it back?

Any ideas most welcome.

Thanks for reading - sorry its so long. Good luck to everyone else.

donnalove

bargain_babe wrote:

The tax credit saga is never ending! After reading this thread and getting more angry by the minute I cannot believe how many of us are in the same boat.

I too have given new details as and when anything changed. I also phoned up when the payments seemed different, only to be told they were correct. I kept note of when, and who I spoke to, and assumed the payments must be correct only to be told I was overpaid by £3,500.

They do not realise what stress this causes, I fought and sent an appeal through, waiting over a year for a reply only to be given the same reply as some of you, even though they admitted it was their error, I should have known that they didnt include my husbands income on the claim even though IN BLACK AND WHITE on my form it was listed as included.! (some idiot at the office had not bothered to type it into the computer but how was I to know when all details were correct).

I had that letter saying I could not appeal, but I wrote back, sent copies of award notices showing all wages listed, asking them to reconsider, I also visited the CAB, where the officer was angry and could not believe it, but still to no avail, had another letter last week (took only 9 months to reply, this time!!!) saying no - their decision stood and we would have to pay it back.

I feel like giving in, although not our fault, what more can we do.

Anyway, yesterday received all new notices, saying money had been taken back anyway, by reducing payments, so were they ever considering my appeal! I now owe £500, which makes my head feel a little better, but why make us all feel like this when they could have not sent us letters saying "as you have received this money recently please now pay it back" most of us do not have £3,500 just sitting there, do we? All this and my husband was made redundant last year and we were in bits, never having been in real debt and there we were in a situation made much worse by the IR.

My saga is not yet over, I phoned them yesterday to tell them the 06/07 payments would be too much, as OH now has job and I get a promotion in Sept, so obviously don't want to be overpaid again this year - THEY WONT TAKE NEW DETAILS as we are not getting paid by more than £25,000 more than last year!!! (who would!!!) I checked they didnt mean our wages would come to more than £25,000 between us and he said no.. and get this... he said by everybody phoning to let them know their details have changed was how the problem of overpayments came about in the first place !!! So there you go - its all our fault (surprise, surprise!) I am at a loss!

So this year I will be overpaid by £3,000 or so! and I know about it, and they won't stop payments or do anything about it - God help us!! What is everyone supposed to do? Will we all have to start new savings accounts with the money just so we can pay it back?

Any ideas most welcome.

Thanks for reading - sorry its so long. Good luck to everyone else.

hi
i can only advice you to go the same route as i did as it seems there are a lot where they say husbands income wasn't on form when it was. that is the very same think that happened to us.The complaints team also said that there had been a lot of those .
Put a complaint into the complaints team you will find details in the leaflets they send you,it would also help to get in touch with your mp.
You need to ring the sarn unit in newcastle, and ask for copies of your phone conversations(0191 2257575) as you said you rang and quiered it but was told it was correct.
then you need to listen to them find the conversations you had to double check.Stress to the complaints team that you don't think they have listened to the phone conversations and you demand they do.Giving dates and names of operatives if you can.

this is all i can advise you to do, i know it is stressful and you feel like you are banging your head agaisnt a brick wall, but if you were told it was correct by an operative then you were misinformed and the payments should be written off and all that they have took returned to you.

hope this helps sorry its long winded.
donnalove

Mrs_Kat

Hi,
This is my first post.
My husband left me about 6 weeks ago and now I've been told I need to pay back £7,500 in tax credits. I can't pay my childminder anymore as they have completely stopped my payments and I have been forced out of work because of this.
I've never been into debt before and to owe this amound of money is really scary. I've gone the route of CAB, complaints forms, MP and Ombudsman and although everyone agrees it is a mistake made by the tax credits office, I will still have to pay it back. I know this stress has contributed to the already stressful family issues.
I've had to quit a £23,000 a year job as with rent, utilities, food etc I can manage but having to pay for childcare on top of that, I'm in the red. And that's not counting clothes or TV. If my baby needs shoes, I'm stuck (and toddlers grow every day). My husband says has no money so he's no help and as the money was paid into my account, they're asking me for it back.
I have no idea what we're going to do.
I'm going into the job centre tomorrow and hopefully we will be able to survive on benefits...

bargain_babe

Thanks Donnalove for your advice. I will see what I can do and will visit the MPs surgery when its on.

Sorry to hear about everybody else in same situation.

It sounds hard, Mrs. Kat and I only hope that people can help you and things get better soon, try not to worry too much about having to pay them back, hopefully they will at least just reduce the payments to you and take it back that way, like they have us. I just wish they had never bothered starting these tax credits (more like - tax debits!) we would all be better off and not in debt to them!

Take care and hope all goes well, let us know how you get on xx

Nicky9

bargain_babe wrote:

Will we all have to start new savings accounts with the money just so we can pay it back?

Yes, open a new account, get all T/C receipts paid into it, when they want it back after a few years just pay them the minimum each month from this account. When it's all paid back, we should have a nice bit of interest to buy all those new shoes we desperately need.

grumpyeggman

hello,new to this site.
we're in the same boat too.

the old family tax credit system under the tories was so much simpler.
you were re-assessed every six months and your award wouldn't change for that six months.
as i understand it,you could even win the lottery and still get your award untill the six months was up.
this system of projecting figures forward and then reviewing backwards is insanely complicated for average working class people to understand.
you need to be a chartered accountant to begin to get your head round it.

we're a hard working,working class family.
the only debt we have is what we owe the tax credit system.
what a terrible thing for the new socialists to do to us all.

perhaps it's all part of the plan to keep us working untill we die:rotfl:

pj#_2

hi, i've not been on the board for a while.

glad to see the report is finished. i'll read that with interest.

i have seen Traceys petition, that looks great. and i don't want to tread on any toes, but i'd like to mention my website about this situation too.
http://www.taxcreditoverpayment.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ i've got lots of cases detailed and some plans in the pipeline. please visit and contrabute.

(i have an online petition too, sorry, i didn't know there was already one:o ) (tracey; please email me at taxcreditoverpayment@blueyonder.co.uk and we can link up)

i am trying to set up a campaign about it all, there are so many of us. but i'm having trouble getting more people else involved. any ideas would be greatly appreicated.

thanks. and i hope we can get this sorted.

Bubble1208

Please show your support and sign the Amnesty for victims of the Tax Credit overpayment farce petition.

http://www.petitiononline.com/tco1/

We need as much support as possible, it's time to make a stand!!