tax credit overpayments new report published

crystalclearok

we had a personal visit out of the blue stating we owed £3650 and are paying it back at a rate of £5 a month the last payment should be made 2064 we will be the ripe old age of 96. Thanks Mr Brown:T

kevsam65

crystalclearok wrote: »

we had a personal visit out of the blue stating we owed £3650 and are paying it back at a rate of £5 a month the last payment should be made 2064 we will be the ripe old age of 96. Thanks Mr Brown:T

SNAP !!!! We had a personal visit yesterday also , apparently we owe £2906 :eek:

£1300 odd of it from 2006 :mad:........ absolutely fuming here , disputing it all the way!:mad::mad::mad:

sam.x

whitevanwoman

Don't pay anything without going through the full dispute process - if I turned up at your door and said you owed me money, would you pay me? These kind of tactics are intimidating and underhand, designed to frighten the most vulnerable people into paying for the government's mistakes and boosting their coffers, now that the coffers are empty after the government has given the country's money to the banks who stole money of us poor people in the form of illegal and inflated bank charges.

Rant over! If you want help with disputing an overpayment go to www.taxcc.org - it is a support group run by people like you and me to help people like you and me to understand the complicated and confusing dispute process. Taxcc forum members are people who have been through it all and can give you advice and support.

Good luck - don't give in to bullies!

gazpacho_uk

Have been forced to read all these horror stories as we got a telephone cal yesterday (maybe they have been knocking on to many doors this week and need a rest). Apparently we have been overpaid £9907. I was informed that the overpayments in working tax credit & child tax credits were made as follows:
Apr 03 / May 04 = £5918
Apr 04/ Mar 05 = £3206
Apr 05 /July 05 = £783

All child tax credit forms have been completed correctly during this period and declerations of income made and anything else they have needed to know was sent. I now have the task of trying to look back and see what happened to cause these overpayments and indeed if we did receive overpayments !

To avoid any court action, baliffs etc we agreed to start paying back the money via the tax credits we should be receiving, so therefore as of now we will not be getting anymore credits (inc child benefit) as this money will be going towards paying back this "suppossed" overpayment.

An absolute nightmare and a great start to 2009, thank you Mr Brown

Thank you Whitevanwoman, the info on the taxcc site looks invaluable

whitevanwoman

Just for info, once you submit an official dispute, then according to HMRC's own code of practice, any recovery proceedings to claim back "overpayments" will be suspended until the dispute is resolved one way or another. In my case this is ongoing for years. This means that you have time to go through your paperwork, request copies of all information held about your claim from HMRC, INCLUDING CDS OF TELEPHONE CALLS. You may well have to complain if they don't send you all your paperwork or CDs within the 40 day limit - but it's worth it as I know of a number of people who discovered that they DID tell the Helpline about changes, or they DID return their annual review, or that their salary was accidentally set to zero by tax credit staff, thus causing the overpayment. This is then your proof that the error was not your fault, although they will then try to tell you that you should have noticed the error!

The other thing to think about is that the more people complain and the more people dispute these overpayments, the more the powers that be will see that serious errors in the system are still happening. If people just accept the overpayment and pay up, it makes the system look like it is working as it should, and so the errors and overpayments will continue to happen.

Fight, fight, fight! As the government likes to tell us, it's money with our name on it, so don't let them give it to us with one hand and take it away with the other.

Lee_Richards

My wife and i have just submitted a claim for Child Tax Credit and Working Credit since getting laid off Christmas week - which has been just been approved.

I was made aware that we could of had Child Tax Credit from day one of our son being born - he is now 16 months old.

Does anyone know if we can get this back dated to day one and if so, how?

Many thanks,

Lee

mazzers

Dont think you can get it backdated (unless the rules have changed) you can only claim from when you first contacted them. I lost money in this way also. Give them a ring and ask they can be quite helpful but take a full name, time, date etc. as I was told a confirmation letter was on its way to me but when asking the moron for his name he hung up, I rung back only to be informed by a colleague that no such letter existed. This was some time ago tho and I think they are better trained now. Well I did until I started reading here!!

Claire79

whitevanwoman wrote: »

You may well have to complain if they don't send you all your paperwork or CDs within the 40 day limit - but it's worth it as I know of a number of people who discovered that they DID tell the Helpline about changes, or they DID return their annual review, or that their salary was accidentally set to zero by tax credit staff, thus causing the overpayment. This is then your proof that the error was not your fault, although they will then try to tell you that you should have noticed the error!

Yes I completely agree with you on this!

My claim went back to 2002-2003 and I claimed online. I know that we are meant to check the declaration forms when they are sent and admittedly I only scanned them. On close inspection when I was writing my appeal to them I did notice that my salary had a value of Zero although I can absolutely guarantee that that my income was not entered as this. But also my question is why on earth would their system not flag up this value?? Surely some warning light should have flashed saying 'Hang on, this is a benefit paid for people that are working, yet this form has a salary of £0.00!???" My old Speak and Spell toy was more complex than the HMRC whole system!!

AdRock

This is a combination of the Reclaim Tax Credits and this thread

In 2002 my tax code was 702H which is what I beleive was right looking at this thread http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1428397

but in 2003 my tax code dropped to 425L becuase we got a letter saying we were overpaid.

What can I do about this and is this correct?

dianab_3

I too had a visit this morning saying I owe Tax Credits £5,000. Although I talked to them last year and was told I only owed £200 not the £7,000 they were asking.
I paid it.

Now they tell me that it was for 2003-04. This claim is for 2004-05 !!

I wrote to them in Jan 04 advising them of a new job and salary, but it seems they carried on paying me on the previous year's assessment.

A new form is being sent for me to dispute their claim for £5,000, but should I have to pay anything back, when this is their mistake?